


Red and Gold

by EnormousEgg



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Iron Dad, Parent Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, all the avengers events are addressed otherwise, canon compliant couples and friendships apply, due to certain events in this narrative age of ultron has been rendered obsolete, i'm sure we all wish it never happened in canon either
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-06-27 19:44:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnormousEgg/pseuds/EnormousEgg
Summary: When she was six, Danielle Zhang found out who her father was. When she was eight, she had the misfortune of meeting him. When she was thirteen, she began to understand how much it cost to exist as the sole spawn of Tony Stark.There are approximately 14, 000, 000 realities in existence. But there is only one Danny Stark – and that shouldn’t matter, but it does.[Canon divergence. Different take on the Tony-Stark-has-a-daughter trope. Encompasses majority of the MCU.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events leading up to Iron Man; think of this chapter as the prelude

I

_Play nice._

The text was short, maybe even curt if you didn’t know any better. Tony could practically picture Pepper’s small, sly smile as she typed out the message and hit send. As if he needed the reminder.

Rolling his eyes, Tony clicked his Starkphone shut and placed it down on the table in front of him. After (another) scandal last week, his assistant Pepper and his handler Obadiah had both decided he was in need of some good PR. Apparently, that meant waiting around in some upscale café in Malibu for a journalist to grill him about his present, his past, his future, etc.

Tony had just finished his flat white when his appointment finally arrived. She looked to be around thirty, maybe thirty-five at most – just a few years younger than himself. A professional, too, judging by the small but polite smile she wore as she approached him. It grew as he rose to greet her.

“Mr Stark,” she said, shaking his hand. “Nada Bashir. Apologies for the delay; my associates were very conflicted about what angle I should be taking with you.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her candidness. “Was it a passive aggressive one?” he asked wryly, sitting back down. “As payback for all those times I kept them waiting.”

Chuckling, she sat across him. “I could blame the poor traffic, but we both know I’d be lying. No, I’ve decided to be a bit more…straightforward with my interview. Shall we begin?”

Wordlessly, Tony gestured for her to go ahead.

“Great.” Her warm expression didn’t change as she began recording their voices. “Let’s address the elephant in the room – how do you feel about last week’s incident?”

“Well, Nada, I didn’t intend for that bird to land on my shoulder, but I can’t say I’m not pleased to be acknowledged as the next Disney princess,” he said without thinking. He could practically hear Pepper sighing in exasperation all the way from LA.

“Allow me to clarify – during the President’s birthday bash on Saturday night, you had a few drinks too many, almost threw up right on the Vice President himself, and then fell into the fountain beside you. Does any of that ring a bell?”

“Several,” he informed her, smiling beatifically.

“You’ve received a lot of backlash for that, and not just politically. The public is questioning your reliability, stating you’re too immature and too irresponsible. How can the people of America trust you and Stark Industries to protect their freedom when you can hardly handle yourself?” The smile was gone from Nada’s face by now. Her expression was neither warm nor cold, but completely blank.

A pro indeed. But two could play that game.

“Look,” he said, leaning back in the plush chair, “what I do on my down time and what I do as CEO of Stark Industries are two completely different things. And people have to respect that, because I’m an imperfect person in an imperfect world but it's the only one we've got. I guarantee the day weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace, I'll start making bricks and beams for baby hospitals, and people won’t have to worry about what I do on the weekends anymore.” Hm, maybe he should stop regurgitating that speech whenever interviews got too invasive. Ah well, he made it work out in the end.

Tony must’ve been successful, because the tension disappeared from Nada’s form. “Speaking of babies, another popular question proposed by our readers is: do you ever plan on settling down? Get married, start a family?”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Should I add a picket fence to my mansion, too? No, thank you. I’m quite enjoying my life as it is.”

“A perpetual bachelor, hm?” Nada chuckled. “Very well. Let’s move onto more interesting topics: are you working on anything new?” 

* * *

Tony’s drive home was surprisingly peaceful. He had left the café in a good mood; there was no bad air between himself and Nada, so it was safe to expect the article she’d be publishing would be a positive one – or at the very least neutral. Perhaps they would split the conversation into two separate pieces. Whatever, it wasn’t his problem.

Sensing he was approaching, the door to his garage automatically opened up. It had already shut itself by the time Tony had parked his car. That was the beauty of wiring AI throughout your mansion, he supposed.

There was a slight skip in his step as he entered his home. He had the whole place to himself for the rest of the afternoon. Pepper and Happy weren’t due back til evening, and unless he had somehow tangled himself in another mess, neither Obadiah or Rhoadey planned on showing up.

So when J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “Welcome home, sir” and then “You have a guest”, Tony froze.

About a million questioned rushed through his mind, but only one emerged victorious. “Where?” he demanded.

“The foyer.”

Tony all but ran there. J.A.R.V.I.S. knew better than to let in someone armed or suspicious, so he felt…well, not at ease, but he definitely wasn’t panicking over the fact that someone was in his home unannounced. He didn’t even start panicking when he realized the intruder was a kid. His mind, however, practically short-circuited.

“Are you…lost?” he asked, blinking rapidly. “Where are your parents, kid?”

A complicated expression overcame the kid’s face. She got up from her seat on his steps and took a few steps towards him.

Embarrassingly enough, Tony had to suppress the urge to take a step back. The kid was small, no older than ten at most. She was Asian--probably Chinese--and there was something about her that struck him as familiar.

The sirens in his head only grew louder as she plucked an envelope from her backpack and silently handed it over to him. With mounting apprehension, Tony unsealed the A4 sized envelope and slid its contents out into his hand. There was a handwritten letter, a birth certificate, and a photo.

“Your mom,” he croaked. “What happened to her?” He didn’t want to ask, not really, but he had to know.

The kid—Danielle, according to his brief glimpse of the documents in his hand—shrunk into herself, making her seem even smaller than she already did. “Dead,” she whispered so softly Tony had to strain himself to hear. “Killed. I heard the police say it was a B&E.”

That was all he was going to get out of her at the moment, because the pain was too great to bear; she pressed her lips firmly together, and if she hadn’t already cried herself dry, Tony suspected more tears would follow the tracks already lining her cheeks.

For the first time in months, Tony’s mind was utterly blank. He was floored. _What the hell am I supposed to do?_

A buzz from his phone almost made him jump out of his skin. Tony fumbled for his device, hurriedly accepting the call before Pepper hung up.

“Hey Tony,” she said easily, completely unaware of the situation unraveling in front of him. “Meeting’s cancelled, so I’m heading back early. How was the interview?”

“Yeah, it was great. Listen, tell Happy to pump the gas because, uh, there’s a bit of a situation here.”

“A situation?” repeated Pepper, a frown clear in her voice. “You didn’t sleep with the journalist again, did you?”

Tony winced at how close to the mark she was. He _had_ slept with someone – just eight years ago. God, even looking at the kid was painful. He turned away from her and, voice lowered, hastily recapped the past ten minutes to Pepper.

“Oh, Tony,” she said, a mix of sympathy, disappointment, and concern in her voice. “I’ll be there within an hour. I know you’re bad with kids, but you have to suck it up, at least for now. Talk to her, make her something to drink, stay close to her. Don’t think about yourself – think of her. She just lost her mother.” _She needs someone_ , Pepper didn’t say. _She needs_ you.

Before Tony could have a complete mental breakdown, he thought back to those murky months when he had lost both his parents at once. His friend and caretaker Jarvis had helped him despite the loss he must’ve felt as well. If he hadn’t, who knew what would’ve happened to him?

Tony ended the call. He breathed in deeply, compartmentalized his wayward thoughts, and turned to the kid with what he hoped was an open expression.

“Sit,” he said, nodding at the spacious couch in his equally spacious living room. “I’ll make us some…hot chocolate.” Did he even have cocoa powder?

Five minutes later, Tony was carrying two mugs of hot milk to the living room. He placed it in front of Danielle before sitting approximately a meter to her left. She was curled up into a ball on one side of the couch. Her shoes were off, he noted distantly as he sipped at his milk. His drink was sadly devoid of any alcohol, because as much as he wanted a drink, he figured now wasn’t the time.

“How did you get here?” he asked, not quite looking at her.

She cleared her throat. “Taxi,” she murmured. “We…lived at Long Beach.” Her voice still rough, she reached out for the milk and took a sip. She cradled the mug in both her hands and looked him in the eye with a solemnity unfitting of someone so young, so small.

“Are you going to kick me out?” she asked steadily.

Tony didn’t even have to think about it. “No,” he said immediately. He wouldn’t just abandon her, not when she was this messed up. Taking care of her was another matter entirely, but that discussion could wait until later, when the look in the kid’s eye wasn’t so haunted.

“Oh.” Danielle put her mug down. The question seemed to have been gnawing at her this entire time. Once she knew she wasn’t being tossed out on the street, the strings holding her up were cut. She laid down on her side, her head against the arm rest, and almost instantly fell asleep.

Tony quickly but quietly got off the couch. _Now_ it was time for a drink.

* * *

Emma Zhang, 37, had died from a gunshot to the head after a supposedly random B&E earlier that day. The culprit was long gone by the time the police arrived, having been called by neighbors who heard the gun go off. Her only daughter Danielle had been pulled out of class and informed of the incident. The police file didn’t say so, but Tony assumed that once the crime scene was cleared, Danielle must’ve grabbed her things, including the envelope her mother had tucked away for her just in case anything ever happened.

Emma Zhang’s paranoia hadn’t been without basis. According to an online search, she was a very loud, very proud activist. Tony wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with her murder, but he wasn’t discounting the idea either. It was almost a miracle the kid hadn’t been harmed thus far, but who knew if that would remain true the longer she stayed with him?

After a long but frantic discussion with Pepper, Tony decided he was keeping the kid. According to Emma’s letter, they were cut off from the rest of her family, so Danielle had no one else to turn to. Tony was literally the last resort. As his ward, she was to be under his care - at least she was old enough, or independent enough, to live on her own.

“No one can find out about this,” he told Pepper.

Her eyes dimmed with rueful understanding. They could just imagine the field day the press would have if they caught word of his estranged daughter showing up on his doorstep out of the blue after twelve years of radio silence. News would spread, tabloids would swarm the place and constantly barrage the kid. Less than savory individuals would try to use her as leverage in exchange for Tony’s almost endless wealth. No, it was best for all if no one knew she existed.

Danielle took it well, for an eight-year-old who had just lost the only parent she had ever truly known. She didn’t cry, or pitch a fit; she accepted Pepper’s kind words with the barest of nods. Tony stood back, watching the exchange uncomfortably. The kid didn’t even look his way.

For the first week or so, she barely emerged from her room for more than ten minutes at a time. Although Pepper took care of most of her meals--she was much more familiar with what food was suitable for a growing child--the kid mostly ate by herself. The one time Tony tried eating with her left him stiffly chewing his food while she sat still as a statue. She was fine when Pepper was with her, though, and he was somewhat surprised to learn that the kid even talked to her.

He was even more surprised to hear that she wanted to return to school. It made sense - even with all the entertainment stuffed in her room, it was no replacement for normalcy and camaraderie.

Instead of sending the kid back to her old school in Long Beach, Tony enrolled her into a school much closer to the mansion. It was basically the same as her old one--mid-tier, average, mixed ability, public--so he hoped she settled in alright. She didn’t voice any complaints, so he figured he did something right.

After she started going back to school again, things almost went back to normal for him. Tony worked, and he partied. He flirted, he messed around (albeit a tad more warily now), and in general he was his old self again.

He returned to the mansion maybe once a week. It wasn’t intentional, his absences - it wasn’t like he was avoiding the place. Things just seemed to get in the way. Cross-country trips, for example, not to mention international ones constantly had him moving about. He even had a trip to Afghanistan coming up. It was a routine weapons check, and even though Rhoadey advised him not to go, Tony found it impossible to stay.

And then he was almost blown up by one of his own weapons.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events of Iron Man 1 & 2

II

There was something very grounding about being abducted and held against your will in an underground bunker. It really put life in perspective.

After he turned himself into a walking, talking weapon, after he was returned to the States and patched up as much as he could be, Tony went home and properly acknowledged his daughter for the first time. Danielle was there in the living room, waiting anxiously for the return of the only family she had left in the world.

Tony spared a moment to place himself in her shoes. The kid had been left here on her own while Pepper and Happy went to pick him up, with no one to comfort her but a faceless voice and her plushie—one of the few things she had brought back with her from Long Beach.

Tony had thought about her a lot while he and Yinsen built the armour that managed save but one of them. When things had seemed bleak, he made himself recall what he was fighting for. Survival was one of the major things, as was his desire to right all the wrongs he unleashed on the world. Then came the people he would leave behind in the world were he to give up and accept his horrid fate.

_“I will see my family once all this is over and done with,” declared Yinsen, his eyes shining brightly in the dark. “And you, Stark? Do you have a family?”_

Pepper and Happy were his employees; they would mourn for a long time, but they would’ve eventually moved on with their lives. Rhoadey was probably one of the few people he genuinely considered his friend, but death wasn’t too unusual a concept at their age. For an eight-year-old who had just lost her mother, though, the loss of her newly-acquired parent would have broken her in more ways than one.

_He hesitated. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess I do.”_

Danielle scrambled out of her balled up position on the couch as he entered. Her brown eyes were alert as she scanned his form; her gaze lingered on the bruises and cuts on his face, and more notably the sling his arm was thrust into.

_Yinsen’s expression shifted as he began to see Tony in a new light. “Good man.”_

“Hey, kiddo,” he said for lack of a better greeting. “Miss me?”

Despite the apparent lightness of his words, his voice managed to break as he forced the words past his lips.

The kid must’ve picked up on it, because she hurried over to him. She stopped in front of him at the last second, so that instead of barrelling into him, she tentatively wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head rested against his stomach, and if she noticed its oddly concaved shape, she didn’t mention it.

_Yinsen made the same face when he realised the armour was taking too long to become active. “I’ll buy you some time,” he said. Ignoring Tony’s protests, he rushed outside, rifle in hand._

Behind him, Pepper made a small noise of adoration as Tony placed his hand atop Danielle’s head. He gave it two soft pats before she unlatched herself from his person, looking more at ease than he had ever seen her.

“I missed you,” she admitted, biting her lip.

_He watched Yinsen bleed out right in front of him. “But your family,” began Tony, raising the face guard of the armour. “You have to see them again.”_

_“They’re dead. I’m seeing them soon.” Yinsen managed a smile even as he took his final breaths. “Cherish yours, Stark._ Live _.”_

Tony peered down at his daughter, a small smile curling up his lips. “Missed you too.”

* * *

The next thing Tony did upon returning was call a press conference. Well, first he had cheeseburgers and fries with Pepper, Happy, and his kid, but _then_ he called a press conference. He was ending the manufacturing of weapons effective immediately until he could determine the future of his father’s goddamn company.

Later, when Tony would look back at his first proper conversation with Obadiah after his return, he would realize the omen for it was. After Obadiah made him reveal the arc reactor keeping him alive, one of his wires had come loose and—to put it lightly—was causing him _great_ discomfort. So he asked for some help.

Happy’s hands were bigger than his, so he was no use. Pepper’s were roughly the size of Tony’s, so she was out too. That left Danielle.

At his request, Pepper had brought Danielle down to his lab. Judging by the widening of her eyes, it was her first actually down here. As much as Tony would’ve enjoyed the gobsmacked look on her face, he had bigger issues on his mind.

“Hey kiddo,” he said with false brightness. “I need you to do me a favour.”

Horror replaced the shocked expression on Danielle’s face as Tony removed the top casing of the reaction in his chest. It probably wasn’t the best time to surprise his eight-year-old with the metal contraption keeping him alive, but…

“Pepper, put her on that stool next to me.”

The grimace marring his assistant’s features made it clear she didn’t want to be complicit in this, but none of them had much choice in the matter. Danielle was placed on the stool overlooking Tony’s chest, and the up-close look at the less-than-human part of her father made her pale dramatically.

“See that wire there?” he said, pointing vaguely at his reactor. At her tentative nod, he said, “You need to pull it out – gently.”

She nodded again, more firmly this time, and shakily reached into his chest cavity. Her whimper could be overheard over the beeping of the monitors surrounding him. “It’s stuck to something,” she whispered. Her skin was borderline green.

“Tug it loose,” he advised her. Besides the sweat beading on his forehead, he appeared completely composed. “You can do it.”

It took a little wiggling, but Danielle got the copper wire out of him – fortunately without pulling part of the magnet out as well. Her job wasn’t over until she installed the top back into the place, though. She snatched her hands back once she heard the reactor click into place.

“That,” she said flatly, “sucked.”

“You’re telling me,” he muttered, grabbing a handkerchief. Pepper already had a towel for the kid’s hands, so Tony used the kerchief to wipe at his damp brow.

“Am I gonna have to do this again?” she asked, a faint whine coloring her tone.

“Maybe.” Tony pulled himself from his reclined position, yanking the monitor’s wires off him as he did so. “You did good, kid.”

She peered up at him curiously as he buttoned his shirt and hid the reactor from view. “Are you like a robot now?”

Tony joined in on Pepper’s chuckles even as an idea sparked to life in his mind. “Maybe,” he said once more.

He glanced at the clock. “Aren’t you meant to be at school right now?”

To his mild surprise, Danielle glanced at Pepper before scurrying out of the lab.

“She hasn’t been to school since you returned,” Pepper informed him. She picked up his old reactor, which really was starting to smell. “What should I do with this?” she asked, nose scrunched up in disgust.

“Throw it,” he said distantly. His mind was already miles away.

* * *

Tony received a much-deserved wake-up call right after his first real flight test around the coast. His pride at having accomplished the impossible dissipated as crashed through all three floors of his mansion and right onto his vintage beauty of a car.

“Gotta work on the landing,” he noted, groaning in pain as he pushed the rubble off him. Thankfully, the suit absorbed most of the damage, leaving Tony walking away with no more than a few bruises and scrapes.

Hissing, he pressed the icepack against his sore scalp. He grabbed a bottle from his desk, and was in the midst of twisting it open when he noticed the package that was next to it. The note taped onto the box informed him it was from Pepper, and Tony faintly recalled her having left it there earlier that day.

Tony’s curiosity gave way to amusement as he tore open the package and saw the gift within. It was his old reactor, connected to a pedestal within a glass display that said: _proof Tony Stark has a heart._

“Dad?”

Tony almost dropped his trophy then and there.

Danielle was standing on the other side of the table, her eyes darting from him to the suit to the giant hole in the ceiling. “Are you okay?” she asked uncertainly.

Instead, he asked, “When was the last time we spoke?”

The kid brought up a hand and mouthed several numbers as she counted using her fingers. “Four days ago?” she guessed.

 _Shit._ Tony closed his eyes briefly as he put down the display Pepper had given him. He had been so absorbed in his new project that he forgot his kid almost entirely. He could just imagine how disappointed Yinsen’s ghost would be.

“I started going back to school,” she offered in the wake of his reproachful silence.

“That’s – good,” he managed to wrangle out. “School’s important.” Presumably.

She paused. “Something destroyed my bedroom,” she confessed. “Was it that robot?”

Tony followed her line of sight to the suit, which still laid crumpled on his car beneath the giant hole it had created.

“Yep,” he said.

“Did you make it?”

“Yep.”

 “Wow.”

Tony couldn’t help but feel smug about the awe Danielle was radiating. Finally, someone who actually appreciated the new path he was paving.

“Wanna keep me company while I work?”

The kid blinked rapidly in confusion. “Pepper said I’m not allowed down here without her.”

Her naïve obedience was endearing. “Trust me,” he told her, smiling.

Doubt flashed across her features, lasting no more than a second in real-time, but to Tony, it felt like a lifetime. “Okay,” she said, shrugging.

She watched quietly as Tony—with the help of his bots—got the suit back together and reconfigured its system to patch up any and all fuck-ups he had made during his stint outside. He spoke mostly to himself, but partly to J.A.R.V.I.S. as he worked out how to improve the suit’s durability so he could fly higher and higher without having to worry about dramatic shifts in temperature or altitude.

He spun on his chair to face Danielle, who flinched in surprise. “Hi,” he said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” she said immediately. “Or purple.”

“J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

His AI offered models of each color on the 3D holograms before them. “Perhaps something a bit more discreet? No offense, Danny.”

_Danny?_

“What does discreet mean?” asked the kid, fiddling with the suit’s mask.

“Discreet,” read J.A.R.V.I.S., selecting one of the countless definitions online. “To be subtle, unobtrusive.”

“Oh. Thank you, J.A.R.V.I.S.”

There was definitely amusement in J.A.R.V.I.S.’s voice as he replied, “Anytime, Danny.”

As Tony digested all _that_ , he peered at his cars along the side of his garage. “How about hot-rod red?” he suggested.

He ignored J.A.R.V.I.S.’s sigh about the lack of discretion as Danielle—Danny—turned up the volume on the TV she had been flipping through. There was a well-dressed reporter with a mic on a red carpet discussing his annual benefit for the city’s firefighters, which was apparently _the_ place to be for everyone except the supposed host of the event.

“J.A.R.V.I.S., did we get an invite for that?” Tony asked, brow furrowed.

He was unsurprised to hear a negative from his AI, and gently removed the mask from Danny’s loose grip. His attention was recaptured by the TV, though, as the reporter continued: “Some claim he’s suffering from post-traumatic stress, and has been bedridden for weeks,” she said, eyebrow raised. “Whatever the case may be, nobody is expecting Tony Stark to make an appearance tonight.”

Now he _had_ to go.

Except…

He tore his eyes from his desktop, which revealed the paint job for his suit would be taking another 4 hours and 55 minutes to complete. Danny had apparently grown bored of the program now that he was no longer on screen, and was watching an animated movie about a rat who could cook.

“Feel like going to a fancy party?” he asked, powering down one of his desktops.

Danny wrinkled her nose. “Is it just gonna be a bunch of adults drinking and dancing and talking?”

“Yep.”

“Then no.” She paused, evidently debating something. “Can you drive me to my friend’s house?”

“You have friends?” he asked, genuinely shocked. What the hell happened to the shy, almost mute, kid he first met several months ago?

Despite being eight, Danny knew when she was being insulted (however unintentionally). “Yes,” she said, scowling.

God, that pout was too much. “Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up placatingly as he fought off a grin. “Alright, choose a car and we’ll go get ready.”

She pointed to the 1932 Ford Flathead Roaster, which was older than both of them combined, not to mention gaudy as hell. “No,” he said sternly.

Frowning, she moved her finger to the left to where his 1967 Shelby Cobra was.

“No sportscars,” he replied. “You know what? I’ll pick.”

Danny sent him a flat look that was ridiculously funny on an eight-year-old’s chubby face as she followed his gaze to his Audi R8 Spyder. It was a convertible, since the two cars she had chosen were both open-air, and he figured she was fascinated by the novelty of the gimmick.

After they got changed into appropriate outfits—a suit for him and casual clothes for her—they hopped into his R8 and sped outside. Danny’s eyes lit up as she peered up at the moon, then at its reflection along the ocean. They drove with the roof down, and her hair was a mess by the end of it, but she was smiling brightly regardless.

“Have fun,” she said, jumping out of the car. She seemed to know what she was doing, so Tony remained in the car until he saw her enter the apartment complex unbothered.

He had a strong feeling she was about to have more fun than he did, but he headed to the gala anyway.

Tony learned several things that night.

  1. Pepper was extremely beautiful. He didn’t know if it was the fitting, backless dress that made him realize that seemingly obvious fact, but now he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
  2. Stark weapons were still being manufactured and shipped out all over the world, including the Middle East, and people were suffering because of it.
  3. Obadiah Stane was not to be trusted.



* * *

In hindsight, Tony probably should’ve done something about Obadiah before it was too late. For instance: he should have removed Obadiah’s security clearance from J.A.R.V.I.S.’s system once he realized his business partner was scheming behind his back. If he had, he wouldn’t be in the position he was currently in.

As he sat back on the couch, paralyzed from head to toe thanks to the vicious (and illegal) device Obadiah had cooked up, Tony was in perfect position to look past Obadiah’s broad shoulder and up the staircase. The kid was up there, having a shower and otherwise oblivious to Tony’s impending doom.

Just as he thought that, she came creeping down the staircase.

A choked-off noise died in Tony’s throat as his panic rose anew. Fortunately, Obadiah mistook it as a groan of pain or protest, and his gloating gained an even smugger edge as he leaned over to pat Tony on his steadily paling cheek.

Slowly and silently, Danny approached them. She wasn’t wearing shoes—she never did while indoors—and the crackling of the flames in the fireplace muffled what little noise she made. Obadiah’s back was to her, so he didn’t even register her presence until she was right behind him.

And then she tased him.

Were Tony less incapacitated, he would’ve enjoyed the sight of Obadiah flailing and falling to the floor with a cry. Danny kept it going for a few seconds, waiting until Obadiah was fully incapacitated before turning her taser off. By that time, Tony was beginning to regain feeling in his limbs.

Danny stared down at the man by her feet, and Tony caught a mix of anger, contempt and horror in her eyes as she looked up at him. “J.A.R.V.I.S. told me what was going on. I asked him to call the police,” she mumbled, her ridiculously young face creased with worry. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he gasped. Instinctively, he clutched at his arc reactor; it was still lodged in his chest, but he could feel the ghost of Obadiah’s fingers lingering over it. He took the taser from Danny and placed it beside him on the couch before wrapping his arms around her. “Thank you.”

It took a few seconds for her to react, but when she did, the tears started falling. “I was so scared,” she sobbed, trembling within the safety his embrace.

“I know,” he murmured, keeping an eye on Obadiah’s still form. “I know.”

That was how Rhoadey found them a minute later. Like Obadiah, he was registered in the system, so he had no trouble getting in. He froze for a second to take in the situation before rushing over to detain Obadiah, who sounded like he was ready to get up. 

“You’ve got some explaining to do,” he informed him, eyes darting from the man he had pinned to the floor to the kid Tony was busy comforting.

Tony sighed just thinking about all the loose ends.

They decided to wait until Obadiah was escorted off the premises and in custody of the cops before opening a discussion. Although his homicidal business partner would be behind bars for perhaps the rest of his life (if he could help it), Tony was still wary about revealing anything in front of him.

Once Stane was out of the building, Tony headed to the kitchen for a drink. Rhoadey was content with tea, and Danny was a child so he gave her chocolate milk. His supply of the stuff was practically endless; the sight almost made Rhoades’s eyes bug out.

“Since when did you have a daughter?” he asked, looking over his shoulder to where Danny was watching TV.

“Technically?” said Tony, grabbing a bag of green tea from the cupboard. “Around eight years ago. She appeared at my doorstep five months back, though.”

Rhoades quickly did the math. “Shit, right before…?”

“Yeah,” he replied, watching the kettle boil. “Right before.”

“And her mom?”

“Dead.”

Rhoadey was an inquisitive person by nature. Were the circumstances a little different, he would’ve undoubtedly fired off question after question about the kid’s situation. Instead, he lowered his eyes respectfully. “At least she has you,” he murmured.

Tony’s smile was tight as he handed Rhoadey his green tea. “I think it’s the other way around,” he said lightly. “She took Obadiah down.”

“How the hell does an eight-year-old have a stun gun, let alone know how to use it?”

“That’s a good question.” Grabbing his scotch and Danny’s milk, he entered the living room.

Although the TV was on, and the kid looked like she was focused on it, her eyes were glazed over, no doubt lost in her thoughts. She shook herself out of it as she registered the mug in front of her.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. She gazed at Rhoadey from the corner of her eye as she took a sip.

Rhoadey knelt down so that he was eye-to-eye with her. “Hi,” he said gently. “I’m James Rhoades, but your…dad calls me Rhoadey.”

“I’m Danielle,” she said, clutching her mug tightly. “I prefer Danny, though.”

“Nice to meet you, Danny. Can I ask where you got that stun gun from?”

She nodded slightly. “My mom gave it to me. She worked a lot. Am I in trouble?”

“No,” Rhoadey assured her the same time Tony snorted and said, “’Course not.”

Tony moved to sit beside her. He removed the mug from her grip and placed it on the table next to his empty cup; his empty hand rested on her head. “I told you you did good, didn’t I?” he said warmly.

Rhoadey shot him an exasperated look before smoothing it over as he turned back to Danny. “Have you ever used it before tonight?” he asked a tad warily.

The kid shook her head, eyes wide. “Mommy said it was for emergencies only.”

Rhoades visibly relaxed as he stood. “Your mom was a smart woman,” he noted distractedly, reaching for his tea.

“Yeah,” Danny agreed as she grabbed the remote. “It’s why she gave me her pocketknife too.”

Tony wheezed with laughter even as Rhoadey groaned in horror.

With the assistance of Pepper, Happy and J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony spent the next view weeks vetting all his employees and weeding out any overtly suspicious individuals. There was more than one OsCorp plant, disturbingly enough, not to mention a few people who were loyal to Stane and supportive of his continued manufacturing of weapons. Tony wasn’t sad to see them go.

The military loathed Stark Industries for its discontinuation of condemning people to death, but Tony wasn’t too worried about them. One of the major projects his company was undertaking served to end the suffering of those victimised by his weaponised greed – not just in the US but all over the world.

The only negative reaction Tony was truly concerned about was Rhoades’s. The pilot was Tony’s only real personal connection to the armed forces, and he was undoubtedly catching heat both publicly and privately regarding Stark Industries’ change in aim. But Tony needn’t have doubted his friend; not once did Rhoadey show any indication of the heckling he faced.

He suspected Danny’s presence played a role in that. Because he knew Tony was still recovering from Stane’s betrayal and murder attempts, and because he probably felt bad for giving him such a hard time after he returned from Afghanistan, Rhoadey offered to help with Danny. Whenever Tony or Pepper needed Happy, Rhoadey would drive Danny to and from school – ostensibly, anyway. Tony was well aware of the side trips they took to Wendy’s, though.

Even when Tony’s overall health improved, Rhoadey remained a constant in their lives. In some ways, the kid finally got the second parent she always wanted. Rhoades had always wanted to be a dad, once he retired, so Tony supposed it all worked out in the end.

Several months later, after Danny’s tenth birthday came and went, Tony discovered he was slowly but surely dying. His arc reactor—the one thing that kept his heart beating—was poisoning him. There was no way to cure it, since he was the only person who knew how the thing worked, as its inventor and all, so Tony simply accepted his fate.

Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to spend his last few months (weeks?) doing nothing. He declared his retirement, named Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries, and assigned her an assistant—a replacement Pepper for Pepper—to help her manage things the way she helped him. She was shocked, not to mention bewildered, by his actions, but Tony always managed to distract her before she could come close to the truth behind his seemingly random decisions.

Then there was the kid to think about. When it came to it, Pepper would most likely name Danny as the next head of the company. (Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen for a few decades at least.) For now, he wrote her into his will as the inheritor of most of his funds. The rest would go to Happy, Rhoadey and naturally Pepper. The kid wouldn’t be able to access the big bucks until she was eighteen, so Tony made sure to establish a smaller account for her while she waited.

She would be crushed by his death, no doubt. Less so when he informed them a week or two before the Grim Reaper came to collect his soul, but she would bounce back. Danny was a surprisingly resilient kid, Tony had come to learn in the year he had spent with her. Unlike with her mother, he and the kid weren’t that close; she didn’t depend on him, didn’t even see him that much. She would be fine.

She would be extra fine if she could learn to protect herself. The incident with Stane was still fresh in his mind even after all these months. When he suggested she take self-defence lessons, her eyes widened with delight.

“So I can learn to kick ass like the Power Rangers?” she gasped.

He frowned. “Don’t say ass,” he said, surprisingly discomforted. “And yeah, sure.”

She basically thrummed with excitement all night. When Happy brought her home the next day, though, she was visibly upset. She skulked to her room immediately, barely remembering to go through her ritual of taking her shoes off by the door.

He whirled over to Happy, who was a few minutes away from leaving to pick up Pepper. “What happened?” he asked.

Happy lifted his shoulders into a brief hug. “Based on how the kids were acting when they left the class, I don’t think she and the others are getting along.”

Tony contemplated that. “No, that’s not it,” he decided. Even if it were true, the kid’s excitement to learn would’ve overriden any cold shoulders she would encounter. “What’s her teacher like? I’ll call them.”

“Or,” interrupted Happy, exasperation coloring his tone, “you could just ask her.”

 _Definitely not._ Tony grimaced. Maybe if he called Rhoadey...

Tony walked away, phone in hand as Happy returned to the car. Rhoades answered within two rings.

“Hey Rhoadey,” Tony said casually. “Up to anything today?”

“Why.”

“Oh, y’know, we haven’t met up in a while and I was thinki—”

“Why.”

Sighing, Tony relinquished the facade and summarised the truth in a hundred words or less. Rhoades was distinctly unimpressed; he offered barely any advice before hanging up entirely.

 _That’s fair,_ Tony thought as he ascended the stairs. As Danny’s unofficial step-dad, Rhoadey could only do so much.

The kid must’ve heard him approach, because she was sitting up and facing the open doorway when he got there. Tony suppressed a flinch and hesitantly knocked.

“It’s open,” she said wryly, and he hoped she wasn’t developing her pre-teen sass just yet.

He folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. “I take it the lesson didn’t go well?”

She scowled at the floor. “I’m the only Asian there,” she muttered through a pout.

“O…kay…?” Tony was definitely out of his league here. “Is that a bad thing?”

“They keep asking if I wanna be a kung fu warrior or the next karate kid - which doesn’t make sense! The karate kids were all white, so if anything, _they_ would be the karate kid!”

“I mean, you’re half-white.”

The kid’s eyes almost fell straight out of her head. “I _am?_ ” she asked, horrified. “But I look Chinese.”

“Well, yeah,” he stammered, completely out of his comfort zone now, “but you’re half-me, so...”

“I’m half-male too?”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. _Damn it, Rhoades…_

Rather than getting into all that, Tony said, “What do you wanna do, kid?” When she looked at him blankly, he continued: “You gonna continue with that program or find another one?”

She bit her lip. “Will you be upset if I quit?”

“Upset?” he echoed incredulously, and she cringed. “No, of course not.”

She peered up at him cautiously. “Really?”

Tony made sure to soften his expression. “Really. Now,” he added, clearing his throat loudly, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Is it a bodyguard named Angry?”

* * *

Natalie Rushman was someone with a lot of internalized rage, judging by the way she crushed the shit-talking wrestler groaning on the mat. It was no wonder her hair was a fiery red.

“Wow,” gushed Danny. Stars practically formed in her eyes. “So cool.”

The tense lines around Pepper’s face smoothed out at the kid’s visible admiration of her supposed new assistant. “Cooler than Iron Man?” she snickered.

“Much.”

“Hey,” Tony protested lightly. He tried (and failed) not to take offense at that.

“Who’s this?” Natalie asked gruffly as her victim limped out the room.

The door slammed shut, leaving just them, Pepper and Danny in the rec room.

“This,” said Tony, “is Pepper’s neice.”

Both Pepper and the kid turned to him with looks of exasperation and confusion respectively. Hm, maybe he should’ve prepared them in advance.

Natalie arched an eyebrow. “Right,” she said dryly. “And as Pepper’s assistant, I’m meant to babysit her niece too?”

While the kid mouthed the word “babysit” to herself, Tony replied, “I wouldn’t call it babysitting. Training, maybe.”

At that point, Danny piped up with a “Is she a real-life Power Ranger?”

Tony shrugged. “Why not?”

“Wow.”

Natalie’s brow was furrowed, but there was definitely an amused quirk to her lips as she said, “Training for what?”

“Just in general,” chimed in Pepper. “Our world isn’t getting safer.”

“I used a stun gun on someone last month,” Danny boasted, beaming.

“You _what?”_

Well, that was his cue.

“It was nice seeing you again, Natalie,” rambled Tony as he strode out the room. “We’ll be in touch.”

He never did, though, because Natalie was never real in the first place. It was a role played by Natasha Romanoff, an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and more importantly, an ally of Nick Fury – who apparently knew how to fix his heart problem.

His dad had the key all along. A ridiculously obscure one, but the key all the same.

More than one weight was lifted from his shoulders after that. Not only was he going to live, Tony suspected his dad cared for him after all.

When he visited “Natalie” one last time to officially terminate her position as Pepper’s secretary, he couldn’t help but ask why she and Nick had bothered helping him with the arc reactor in the first place.

She barely blinked, unfazed by the otherwise cold question. “Rest assured, it wasn’t for your sake as much as your daughter’s.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t surprised she figured it out, not really. But he had to know. “Did you tell anyone?” he asked, fists clenched.

Her responding smile was as sharp and wicked as a blade’s edge. “Just Fury.”

“Keep away from her.”

“Does that mean you’re willing to cooperate with the Avengers initiative?”

Tony ran his hands through his hair tiredly. “Fine,” he snapped, scowling to the side. “But don’t involve anyone else I care about.”

Agent Romanoff dropped her smile. She nodded once before leaving his office. As Tony watched the door close behind her, he wondered if he hadn’t just made a huge mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers

III

Danny was seven when she first asked about her father. She had never given him much thought before, because his presence (or lack of) wasn’t really relevant in her life. She wasn’t the only kid in her class without just one parent; those things just happened sometimes.

It was Father’s Day, and their class had been asked to discuss their father, or a father figure, as part of a fun little activity their teacher had devised. Robert, the other kid without a father, spoke about his best friend’s dad. Danny, inexplicably, had felt betrayed. When her name was called, she simply shrugged. Her turn was bypassed with a small but pitying frown from the teacher. The incident had left a bad taste in her mouth and a newfound curiosity in her heart.

“Mom,” she said as soon as she got home, “do I have a dad?”

Her mom paused in reading her novel. She looked up, a serious expression on her worn face as she removed her reading glasses. “You do,” she replied, closing her book. She got up from the couch. “Follow me.”

Disquieted, Danny followed her without a word. They entered her mom’s study, a small but cosy room that was somehow messy and clean at the same time. Her mom knelt down by her desk and opened the last draw – the one with the lock that always remained unlocked. From it, she pulled out a bunch of papers.

Her mom handed her a birth certificate – Danny’s birth certificate. Her eyes widened as they came across a familiar name.

“Is this why you hate Stark Industries?” she gasped, barely managing to utter the last word. Her speech impediment was mostly under wraps, but large words sometimes threw her off.

Smiling, her mom plucked the papers from Danny’s small hands. “In a way, yes. After I met Stark, I started finding out what kind of person he was, and did my best to stay away from him afterwards. I decided not to tell him about you when I got pregnant – you’ve seen on the news how the media treat him, right? I didn’t want that kind of attention on me, and definitely not on my precious daughter.”

“Oh.” Danny absently picked at the scab on her forearm. “Is he a bad person?”

“I’m not sure,” her mom answered sincerely. “He’s misguided for sure, but bad? That depends.”

“Grown-ups are so confusing.”

Her mom huffed a laugh. “That we are.”

After that day, Danny sort of…obsessed over Tony Stark. She watched and read about him, and looked up his history. The media loved to talk about him, so it wasn’t like information on him was difficult to find. Both good and bad things were attached to him, and Danny didn’t know what to think.

Even now, at thirteen, she was rather conflicted. He was nice to her, sure, but to others? Not so much.

Little had changed ever since her dad officially instated Pepper as CEO and Chairman of Stark Industries. Tony Stark was still highly regarded in the business and science worlds, and used his near-limitless resources making up for his past sins. Primarily, though, his focus was on improving S.H.I.E.L.D. technology.

Danny’s knowledge of the secret organisation was scarce. They were a branch of the government, but not really, and weren’t even a blip on the radar in the eyes of the general public. That was more than a little creepy, and Danny could only imagine what her mom would have had to say were she alive.

Although her dad worked _with_ (and not _for_ , as he constantly reminded her and Pepper) them, he did not trust them one iota. He was doing the bare minimum to keep them happy, and if they picked up on his scheme, they didn’t mention it.

Due to his distrust of the hidden organization, her dad was absolute about Danny being able to defend herself. Pepper’s redheaded assistant had disappeared after the first time Danny had met her, but everything turned out okay, because her dad hired someone better to whip her into shape.

Aaron Chen was a middle-aged man from Shanghai who had moved to the States as a child. He taught Danny and his own children simultaneously; they became fast friends, and invited her over so often it was like she had a second home. The first time she had dinner with them, she almost cried.

“Sorry,” she said in a choked voice, “it’s just – I haven’t had real Chinese food in so long.”

Her dad, Pepper, and Uncle James tried their best, but the takeout they bought her really wasn’t the same as homecooked Chinese food. It wasn’t authentic, since it catered to what the average American assumed Chinese cuisine was like.

There _were_ a few legit places scattered throughout Malibu, but not anywhere close enough to enjoy without having to reheat it. As much as Danny wanted to check out these eateries, the first time she had suggested it, her idea was shot down immediately. No one had the time to accompany her, and even if they did, her presence amongst well-known individuals such as the adults in her life was way too questionable not to be investigated. Her mom’s reluctance to avoid the public eye had been passed onto Danny, so even though no one could ever know whom her dad truly was, she understood.

Still, life as Tony Stark’s daughter wasn’t too bad. Whenever Pepper or her dad went on a business trip, she could often tag along. Happy accompanied her wherever she went, but she knew he didn’t dislike her, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable. She had even made him smile once.

Things were good – until the aliens started invading.

It began after they established the first self-sustaining Stark Tower all the way in New York. Danny had been there countless times during the construction of the tower, and she had no special interest in watching it light up for the first time ever – it wasn’t like she would even see much from the inside as it was. She was content to stay home while her dad and Pepper did their work, but Dad was lowkey paranoid about leaving her alone, especially at night, so she had been forced to come.

Well, it wasn’t like she was complaining. The tower had about a billion floors, and she still hadn’t finished exploring them all. Dad had even installed a training room for her large enough for her to practise both her combat and roller-skating skills.

Pepper insisted she maintained a hobby purely for fun, and wouldn’t take “ass-kicking” as a proper option. Her advice paid off, though, because it turned out Danny was actually good at it – like, good enough to compete. Danny made a promise to herself: if she scored first place at a roller derby, she would attempt ice-skating next. The progress just seemed natural.

Danny blinked as the lights in the tower flickered off and then on again in less than a second. The cheerful chatter of Pepper signalled Dad’s success in completing the giant replica arc reactor that powered the building. She and Pepper shared a smile as Dad’s voice filtered through the intercom in his suit.

He landed on the balcony a minute later, his suit unlatching itself from his body with the help of the machinery that were practically J.A.R.V.I.S.’s arms. Danny peered at the red and gold metal enviously through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Her dad patted her on the head as he passed by. Danny idly fixed her hair as she resumed the film on her tablet. He and Pepper were celebrating with flutes of champagne, and as much as Danny wanted to try a sip, she knew Pepper would never let Dad get away with it. She was offered bubbly water as compensation, but Danny would rather die than drink the carbonated stuff.

The celebration was interrupted by an unwelcome visitor. They received a brief warning from J.A.R.V.I.S., whose protocols were being overridden by the newcomer. Danny tensed, the image of a smirking bald man flashing through her mind’s eye.

She glanced at Tony. He wasn’t suiting up, fortunately, but he didn’t look pleased either. “Dad?” she asked hesitantly.

Her dad had enough time to press a finger to his lips in a gesture to stay low when the elevator dinged. Its doors parted, and an unassuming white man in a suit walked in like he owned the place.

Pepper’s expression brightened. “Phil!” she called, rising to meet him.

Phil smiled. “I can’t stay,” he warned her, but his disposition was just as warm as Pepper’s.

“Phil?” echoed Tony as he hastened to get up after Pepper. He pointed an accusatory finger at the man. “His first name is Agent.”

 _Agent Phil?_ Danny wondered silently as she watched the scene in front of her unfold. No one was paying her any mind, thankfully.

Phil handed a slim folder to Tony. “We need you to look this over,” he informed him.

 _Ah,_ thought Danny. _S.H.I.E.L.D._

Her suspicions were confirmed when Pepper asked, “Is this about the Avengers initiative? Which I know nothing about.”

Phil raised an eyebrow at the transparent lie, but Danny seemed to be the only one in the dark here. Avengers? The hell was that?

Dad scoffed. “That initiative was scrapped. And even if it wasn’t, I believe I didn’t qualify? Something about me being volatile, self-obsessed, can’t play well with others?”

Danny couldn’t help but snort at her dad’s dry tone. He really shouldn’t have been this salty, not when the personal profile was so accurate. She regretted the action a moment later as all eyes zeroed in on her. Well, she might as well roll with it.

“Should add ‘thin-skinned’ to that list,” she told him, smiling sweetly.

He gave her a look. “Pepper, please banish your unruly niece.”

Danny rolled her eyes at him before turning back to her tablet. She snuck a peek at Agent Phil, though, and the speculative expression on his face unnerved her.

Pepper ignored him in favour of flicking through the file on his desk. “What’s this?”

“This,” said Dad, swiping across his display so that the images projected themselves around him, “is the Avengers initiative.”

Danny stood up, mouth agape at the tapes being played. On one screen was the shield of Captain America, a symbol easily recognisable from her History classes. Beside it was vintage footage of the Captain on the battlefield. The screen beside it was of a green monster tearing through a city on a rampage, while the last projector revealed a blonde man in a red cape fighting off a robot shooting lasers from its eyes. Together, they produced a cacophony of pain and destruction.

“I’m taking the plane to DC tonight,” announced Pepper, eyes wide as she watched the chaos being played before her. “And I’m bringing Danny with me.”

“What about school?” she protested, approaching them. _What about Dad?_

“You can afford to miss a few days,” Dad informed her in a low voice. “Stick with Pepper; you can help Happy guard her.”

She knew he was only saying that to appease her. Danny glowered. She could fight, possibly better than him – especially when he didn’t have his suit on.

Dad met her scowl with one of his own, and Pepper hastily but smoothly ushered Phil out the room under the pretence of giving him a tour. “Listen,” he said in a tone of voice that made Danny want to plug her ears shut. “I know you crushed that thirty-year-old in that tournament last year, but whatever S.H.I.E.L.D.’s facing? Way out of your league.”

Danny silently crossed her arms.

“These guys aren’t human, kid,” he said, flipping the display so that she could see it properly. “Hell, the guy in the cape is a literal _god_.”

“Some people think you’re a god,” she pointed out.

“Flattery isn’t going to change my mind.”

Danny huffed, but the tension in her form was effectively dismantled. “Are _you_ gonna be okay?” she asked in a small voice.

“Course,” he said blithely, but there was a sliver in doubt in his eyes. “I’m Iron Man.”

He turned off the projector with a flick of his wrist. “Speaking of which,” he added, turning to the lift, “I have something for you.”

Curiosity piqued, Danny followed. A million possibilities streamed through her head as the lift sunk to the lowest level of the tower. Hope and expectation mingled together to form a bubbling mess of emotion. She all but pried the doors open as they reached their floor—

Only to be greeted by a dismally empty room. The entire thing was a slab of grey save for the two circles in the middle of the floor.

“This is all yours,” announced Dad as made a beeline to the inner circle.

Danny walked into the barren room. “Thanks?”

“Not everyone can access this level,” he continued. A computerised desktop popped out of the external ring formed between the circles with a wave of his hand. “C’mere.”

He traded places with her so that she was in the middle of the smaller circle while he watched on the outskirts. “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he called, “Code Emerald.”

Several seconds later, with the help of J.A.R.V.I.S. and his mechanical arms, Danny was fitted with her own suit. Stunned, she stared at her arms and legs. The suit was mostly green and filled out with black. It was smaller than her dad’s suit, and designed differently; it was suppler, made out of a flexible material as opposed to all the metal he used.

The helmet had also been altered. Having worn the Iron Man helmet before, she spotted it even without the diagram being projected on her left. Rather than the eyeholes her dad favoured, hers had a tinted visor that resembled a motorcycle helmet.

Dad crooked a finger at her, indicating for her to step forward. Once she was in front of him, he tapped the side of her helmet, above where her ear would be. Her visor slid up, exposing her face.

“So?” he said, smirking. “Is it great or is it great?”

“It’s awesome,” she confirmed, beaming. “Can I fly?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.” Her grin slipped. “Can I shoot lasers and stuff?”

“Also nope.”

The smile was wiped clean from her face at that point. “What can I do, then?”

“Basically, everything you do normally is enhanced by the suit.” He leaned over her to press a button on the display. Instantly, training dummies appeared from the panels beneath the floor. “Hit it – but get a running start.”

Bemused, Danny clicked her visor shut and did as directed. She ran the short distance to the dummy, and leapt up in preparation for a roundhouse kick. Instead of slamming her foot into its head, though, she overshot herself and flew right over the dummy entirely.

The suit absorbed the shock of the fall, leaving her disoriented but uninjured. Dad was still standing where she had left him, but there was definitely an amused grin on his smug face.

“I forgot to tell you,” he called, snickering. “While you can’t fly, you can definitely jump from place to place.”

“Like a rabbit?” she all but screamed. _The Iron Bunny_. God.

Dad shrugged, unapologetic. “Think of this suit as your training wheels. Seriously, though, hit the dummy.”

“Which one?” she groused, narrowing her eyes at him even as she approached the mannequin.

Rather than showing off this time, Danny struck the dummy with her fist. It went flying back and crashing into the wall with a satisfying _bang_. Impressed, Danny flexed her fingers through her gloved fists. Like her legs, forearms, back and helmet, her hands were reinforced with the same metal Dad used for his suit. Sturdy and defensive while leaving room for movement.

“Back in the circle,” he instructed. As he waited for her to skip back, he continued, “On the other side of the helmet is a switch that’ll activate the A.I. in your visor. It’ll help you calculate the trajectory in your jumps, zoom in on images, communicate with J.A.R.V.I.S., et cetera.”

Danny switched the display on and off before settling into position in the circle. She bounced lightly on the tip of her toes, excited to see what was next, when the mechanical arms slid out of the ceiling and floor once more – this time to remove her suit.

“What?” she said, blanching. “But—”

Dad plucked the helmet off her head before J.A.R.V.I.S. could remove it. “You’ll get to use it when we come back,” he informed her sternly. “Now, you have a plane to catch.”

Danny grabbed the helmet from his hands. “But I don’t want to go to DC,” she protested, gripping it firmly. “I want to stay with you.”

“Tough luck.”

She scowled. “With this suit, I’d be just as capable as the average S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

“I highly doubt the average agent is a pre-teen,” he bit back sardonically. “Look,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, “I know you’re worried about me, despite me being Iron Man, but think how worried I’d be if you were in the thick of things too.”

She peered down at her helmet. “I guess,” she muttered, resigned.

“Good,” he said fondly, reaching down to ruffle her hair.

Danny took advantage of the opening to capture him in a tight hug. “Please be safe,” she murmured into his blazer. The arc reactor hummed beside her ear.

“I promise.”

* * *

Tony Stark was not an honest person. He lied freely and indiscriminately whenever it suited him. He knew that, Pepper knew that, Danny knew that. When it came to the people he cared about, though, Danny realized he kept his lies relatively harmless and miniscule.

With that thought in mind, the minute Pepper left her to her own devices, Danny took a train straight back to New York. She left a note, which Pepper wouldn’t discover for a good nine hours.

She had tried to be good, but DC was _so_ boring—especially when she couldn’t go anywhere by herself—and who could resist that beautiful black and green suit just waiting for her back in New York? Besides, she was confident the tower was safe; J.A.R.V.I.S. had informed her as much.

Danny flicked through her phone as the scenery outside grew duller. The news was abuzz with the recent appearance of not only Iron Man, but Captain America himself. Of the two, her dad definitely looked cooler.

Accompanied by a jet of unidentified origins, the two superheroes had taken custody of the pale, black-haired man terrorising a congregation of well-dressed party-goers in Germany.

 _Germany._ Now that was an interesting place. Maybe she could spend her middle school years studying abroad... Though once Dad and Pepper caught wind of her little excursion, she’d probably be grounded for the rest of her life. At that epiphany, Danny contemplated turning back, but the train was almost at its destination anyway.

She took a cab to Stark Tower. The driver had given her an odd look at that, but she merely offered him a smile. He shook his head slightly, as though deciding that he didn’t care enough, and Danny resolved to tip him 100% – which wasn’t saying much, as that was her minimum when it came to tips. Her dad had way too much money to spend, so why not give it those who actually needed it? So when the fare came to a rough total of twenty dollars despite the short ride, Danny didn’t question it; she gave him a fifty and hopped out.

The first set of doors opened for her as soon as J.A.R.V.I.S. established her identity. To get through the actual entrance, she had to either can her ID card or key in the code. Since Stark Industries hadn’t actually developed the cards just yet, Danny punched in the passcode and strode right in.

The lights turned on momentarily, switching themselves off as soon as it no longer registered her presence. Every month Americans wasted enough electricity to power an oven for six days straight at its highest temperature…or something like that. Danny caught bits and pieces from Pepper and Dad’s spiels, but she never really retained it. Her memory retention probably needed to improve if she was going to take over Stark Industries one day. Not that they had thought that far yet (at least to her knowledge) but Danny assumed it was the most sensible course of action.

Once she reached the basement, Danny removed her helmet from her backpack and donned it. She tossed her bag to the side and proceeded to suit up.

Her visor down and her visuals up, she spent the first minute or so playing with all the settings available. She could adjust the visibility and brightness, zoom in and out, take photos and short recordings, calculate her estimated distance between Point A and Point B as well as gauge how the suit was faring in terms of durability and power.

“Neat,” she whispered, awed.

The next half hour was spent going through her usual exercise routine. Jumps, cartwheels, backflips. Punches, kicks, strikes of all kind. Once she was warmed up, she searched through the room’s database for an appropriate training simulation.

A nondescript figure materialised in the room. His figure actually reminded her of Mr Chen’s, and it wasn’t too unlikely that it was actually modelled off him despite Dad not once making it to her tournaments. He was busy, though, not to mention probably leery of watching her fight others.

There was a virtual scoreboard to keep track of how many hits were scored by each combatant. As time wore on, she took more hits than she gave; Danny thought it a little unfair, since she was alive and thus prone to tiring while her opponent was a literal phantom, but she supposed petty complaints like that wouldn’t matter in real-life situations.

She was utterly obliterated, but that was okay; she just had to try harder. And possibly convince her dad to install tasers into her gloves.

By the time Danny was done, she was sweaty and tired but content. A shower was on her mind, but just as she made to take off her helmet, the building shook violently.

The air was knocked out of her lungs as she slammed onto the floor. The trembles quickly subsided; a loud _crack_ soon followed. It was like thunder had just split the sky in half from the sounds of it.

Groaning, Danny righted herself. “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” she hissed, “what was that?”

“It’s best if I just show you.”

Her visor flickered. Overlaying her view of the nondescript room was the sky itself – except there was a giant hole in it. A portal to another world from which aliens were streaming through, armed to the teeth and ready to wreak havoc on their world.

“What do I do?” she gasped, rushing to the lift. “Wait. Zoom in on that device.”

The AI obliged, switching cameras to get a better angle of the device activating the portal from their end. There was a man lying beside it, either unconscious or dead.

 _Unconscious,_ Danny decided after seeing his leg twitch. But he wouldn’t remain alive much longer if one of the aliens took notice of him.

J.A.R.V.I.S. kept the live feed going as Danny took the lift outside. The several seconds it took for her to reach the top floor felt like hours. Unfortunately, Dad had yet to add a camouflage setting to her suit, so she just had to be quick if she wanted to avoid detection – from either the aliens or the caped men dishing it out a few floors down.

The feed finally cut off as she raced onto the balcony. Danny blocked out the screams and explosions around her, focusing solely on the man that was beginning to stir.

He didn’t bother resisting as she knelt down and slung one of his arms across her padded shoulders.

“Easy does it,” she murmured reassuringly as he struggled to speak.

“The portal,” he gasped. “We need to turn it off — failsafe.”

“He is concussed,” informed J.A.R.V.I.S.

Danny nodded, though she wasn’t sure if J.A.R.V.I.S. could even detect the move of acknowledgment.

Once inside, she gently lowered the man on the couch. “You say there’s a failsafe?” she asked, flexing her hands tersely.

He managed an eighth of a nod. “The sceptre and tesseract emit similar waves of energy. Put them together and they’ll cancel each other out.” Not the best explanation considering his state, but Danny would take what she got.

“The sceptre outside?” she asked rhetorically. Without waiting for a response, Danny ducked back onto the balcony, her eyes set on the blue and gold stick just sitting there for the taking. That meant she didn’t see him until it was too late.

“Well, well, well,” chuckled an ominous voice. A man dressed in dark green loomed over from the alien hoverbike he was commanding. “What do we have here?”

As terrifying as the aliens were, the man before her was simply unnerving. His blue eyes were cold, like glaciers, and the only emotion Danny could spot in his expression was one of malicious glee. It set her teeth on edge.

Before Danny could even think of a way to react, a monstrous roar filled the air. An even greener freak came leaping through the air, tackling the black-haired man and barely missing Danny by an inch.

Eyes practically the size of dinner plates, Danny shook her head clear of that whole ordeal and pressed on. She would deal with all that later; right now she had an alien invasion to stop.

“So,” she said through gritted teeth as she grabbed the sceptre. It was surprisingly light, and hummed with sheer power. “Any projected consequences for what I’m about to do?”

J.A.R.V.I.S. was silent for a moment. “I’m afraid I am not certain.”

Danny closed her eyes briefly. She thought of her mom. While she didn’t know what would happen to her personally when she jammed the sceptre through the blue stream of light, she was definite about what would happen to the world if she failed to do the right thing.

The blue stone ensconced between the blades of the sceptre seemed drawn by the similarly colored cube powering the portal. The pull was practically magnetic, and all Danny had to do was help bring the two together.

From her periphery, she saw a gold and ruby figure darting towards her. _Dad._

Her lips lifted into a small smile as she leaned forward. For a moment, she thought she heard him call her name, and then she was swallowed up by an ocean of ethereal blue.

* * *

“They won’t wake, you know.”

It took all of Tony’s willpower not to march over there and wipe the smirk off Loki’s face. He had lost and they had won, but the casualties apparently soothed his wounded pride for the time being. The fact that he managed to harm one of their precious people was merely the cherry on top.

He had watched it all in what seemed like slow motion. Danny’s familiar green suit appearing on the balcony, Loki hovering before her, the Hulk saving her in the nick of time. And then she had grabbed the sceptre.

His jets had been put into overdrive as he raced to stop her. But he was too far, too slow, so he could do nothing but watch as the reaction between the two alien artefacts propelled her off the balcony.

He had just managed to catch her. Instead of lowering her to the ground, Tony had soared upwards, ready to demand her to be fixed by Loki. A ludicrous idea in hindsight, but he wasn’t exactly thinking straight at the time. 

He remained by her side while the others chewed out the Asgardian for him. Her suit was damaged internally; J.A.R.V.I.S. couldn’t read her vitals from within. They didn’t move her for fear of hurting her further. Tony could only wait for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s medics to arrive with the rest of the clean-up crew.

“What were you thinking?” Tony whispered angrily. His own mask remained on his face. He refused to give Loki the satisfaction of spotting the anguish twisting his expression.

Loki chuckled. It was a wheezy thing, probably because of the damage sustained thanks to the Hulk. “Relinquish hope, Stark. No one could survive an explosion between the sceptre and the tesseract like that.”

“For once in your wretched life—“ began Thor, raising his hammer threateningly.

But Tony was already standing. He knew Thor’s threat was mostly empty; he would never maim his brother.

Tony had no such compunctions.

His suit whined and whirred as he powered it up, startling the others into action. Natasha and Clint leapt away instantly while Bruce stumbled back, done for the day. Thor hung back uncertainly, but his grip on his weapon hadn’t loosened.

Steve was the only one who approached him. He did it slowly, shield in front of him like Tony was a wild animal ready to attack at any given moment.

“We’ve seen enough bloodshed today,” he reminded him in a low voice.

That might’ve been enough to stop him, but he would never know. At that very moment, someone stirred behind him.

Danny’s gasp was audible even through her helmet. Her body arched upwards as though she had been shocked.

Sufficiently distracted, Tony rushed over to get the kid’s helmet off her and allow her to breathe easily.

(What no one realized, though, that in the two seconds it took for Tony to reach his daughter, her brown eyes glowed an unsettling blue.)

She blinked up at him. “Is the old dude okay?”

Tony stared. “Who?”

“There was this old white guy,” she clarified, struggling to get up. “I left him on the couch.”

“You mean Selvig?” he asked even as he helped her sit up. “He’s outside checking the portal. Speaking of which: what’s the last thing you remember?”

Danny stretched her legs out before her as she tried and failed to see Selvig. Tony was purposefully blocking her right so that she wouldn’t notice Loki and, more importantly, so that he wouldn’t see her.

“Blue,” she said at last. “All I remember is blue.”

The medics arrived soon enough. Once everyone was patched up, Tony offered them a round of drinks and then a self-congratulatory lunch to celebrate the first real achievement of the Avengers.

Danny raised a hand.

“You’re too young,” he told her.

She lowered her arm.

“How old are you?” Steve asked not unkindly from the back seat. He, Tony, the kid and Bruce were sharing one car while Thor, Natasha and Clint shared another. Loki was with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Danny perked up at the attention. Tony barely refrained from rolling her eyes. If she was going to go crazy over the Capsicle as much as Howard Stark had, Tony was going to scream.

“I’m thirteen,” she declared.

Steve’s eyes widened comically. “I think you’re the youngest person ever to save the world,” he told her in a conspiratorial voice.

Danny’s smile melded into something that suited a war veteran than a thirteen-year-old from Malibu. “It’s what Mom would’ve done.”

They didn’t speak again until they got to the run-down shwarma joint, and only then was it to order. If there was any surprise that the half-destroyed eatery was still operating, no one mentioned it; it was New York, after all.

“Wait,” said Tony, swiping at his face with a napkin. “Shouldn’t you be in DC?” He had just remembered Pepper’s frantic calls when he was mid-battle.

Danny’s eyes grew large as she shrunk in her seat. “No?”

“Hm.”

“Cut her some slack, Stark,” interjected Clint. “She just saved all our asses.”

“Language,” muttered Steve, half-asleep.

“You can swear in front of me,” confided Danny, delighted. “Dad does all the time.”

 _“Dad?”_ echoed Bruce. “She’s your daughter?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You concussed, Banner?”

Tony smiled, amused. “Who’d you think she was?”

“I dunno, a random good samaritan?” offered Bruce.

“Why the confusion?” rumbled Thor. “The resemblance is clear as day.”

Tony stared at the god, silently wondering if he was being genuine or just really good at pulling people’s legs. Considering who his brother was…

“Happy says I don’t look or act like Dad,” she said, frowning. “Except for the cussing.”

Steve peeled one eye open long enough to shoot him a glare. Tony shrugged; he couldn’t care less. Maybe it wasn’t exactly a very parental thing, to curse in front of his kid, but it sure was funny hearing her repeat them.

Thor leaned forward eagerly, pushing forward the table by a good inch. “Would you like to expand your vocabulary?”

Danny stared at him for a moment, as though trying to pin down his accent. “Like, swears in a different language? I already know some in Japanese, Mandarin, Korean and Italian.”

Steve sighed while the others looked considerably impressed.

“Ah, but do you know of ones in alien tongues?”

The kid’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.

A few hours later, everyone was clean, full, and asleep in Stark Tower. There was a residential floor full of bedrooms near the top, built in case he or Pepper weren’t bothered flying back to Malibu for some shut-eye. Everyone had their individual room while Tony occupied the master bedroom.

Sleep rarely came easily to Tony, but now it was even worse. Every time he closed his eyes, his mind replayed the scene wherein Danny closed the portal. Sometimes the backlash wiped her out, sometimes it knocked her hard enough to either send her into a coma or destroy her mental faculty entirely. The most common scenario was her surviving the initial blow, only to come crashing into the unforgiving pavement because he was too slow to catch her.

Parenthood was a fucking nightmare.

Since it was clear he wasn’t getting a wink of sleep tonight, Tony went to the lab reserved for him and only him. He had placed everyone’s equipment there for repairs, including the kid’s. He debated never returning the suit to her, but it would leave her crushed, especially since she saved all their asses and thus New York’s. Before he could make his way over there, he went to her room to check in on her.

The room was empty.

His heartrate increased dramatically.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he bit out, “where’s the kid?”

“In the dining area, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied serenely.

 _Right,_ he thought, forcing himself to calm down. _Of course._ The kid was growing like a weed, and was almost always snacking.

She wasn’t alone, though. Thor was with her, and the sight of the giant Nordic god sitting at the table listening intently to his tiny thirteen-year-old  almost made him feel like laughing.

Her feet swung idly as she ate another spoonful of cereal. “And then this man approached me at the park when Happy was buying me ice cream, and he said some gross things, so I tased him.”

“You sure love tasing people,” noted Thor, apparently having been caught up on her personal history with tasers.

“Well, it’s the best form of defence I have.”

Thor nodded as if he agreed. “I take it you’re a fan of weaponised electricity?”

“For sure. There’s this show, Avatar, and people can manipulate elements, and the really skilled ones can even bend lightning,” she raved. “If I could bend an element, I’d choose lightning.”

Tony chose that moment to make his presence known. “I thought you wanted to be a waterbender,” he said, heading towards the fridge. He had caught glimpses of the show whenever the kid was watching it — which was basically all the time.

“True,” she said thoughtfully, lowering her spoon. “You can heal people _and_ manipulate their body via bloodbending.”

Hm. Maybe he should put a stop to that show.

“No, you’d definitely want to bend lightning,” interjected Thor. “Because then you can do this.”

Thor stretched out a meaty hand. Sparks of lightning danced across his fingertips like a particularly curious magic trick.

Danny, however, loved it. “Oh my god,” she gasped. Her spoon fell back into the bowl, her appetite forgotten. “How?”

Thor preened. “I’m the god of thunder,” he boasted. “This is child’s play.”

“Is Zeus your dad?”

 _“Zeus?_ ” he repeated indignantly. “Heavens no. I am a Son of Odin, a Noridic god from Asgard.”

“Can everyone in Asgard do this?”

He chuckled. “While Asgardians have their own skills, I’m the sole master of lightning and thunder.”

“Wow,” she whispered. “So cool.”

“Okay,” interrupted Tony, chucking his mug into the sink. “Let’s not let point-break’s head get any bigger.”

The kid handed him her bowl. “Can you clean this too?”

He shot her an unimpressed look. “I didn’t realize you were so busy.”

She nodded seriously. “I’m studying History and Astrology right now,” she replied before turning back to Thor. “What’s Asgard like?”

Tony regretted not sending her to bed after that. They ended up talking all night while he worked on everyone’s stuff. By the time it was light out, the kid finally wandered over to him in his lab.

“Dad,” she said from the other side of his work table. “Can I study abroad?”

“Where to?” he asked without looking up from his suit. The wiring was all mixed up.

“…Asgard.”

Tony paused in his work. When she didn’t crack a smile, he said, “What, seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“Uh, ‘why not?’” he scoffed. “It’s a whole other planet, it’s dangerous, not to mention impossible.”

Her frown deepened. “Asgard’s recognized as the peacekeepers of the Nine Realms,” she claimed, and he knew these were Thor’s words she was parroting. That damn carpenter and his propaganda. “If anything, it’s safer than it is here.”

That stopped Tony short. Was the kid scared of remaining on Earth? He winced and lowered his tools. “You’re safe here, Danny,” he reminded her.

She didn’t respond, but the doubt that flooded her expression conveyed what mere words couldn’t.

He sighed. “How long?”

The kid brightened minutely. “A year? Thor’s leaving tomorrow.” She glanced at the clock. “Technically today.”

Tony exhaled sharply. So soon. “Your friends won’t miss you?” Companionship was important for pre-teens, right?

She directed a bitter smile at the floor. When had his daughter gotten so cynical?

“Well,” he managed to utter, “let’s get you packed.”

The kid’s expression grew sheepish. “I left everything back in DC,” she admitted.

He sighed.


	4. Chapter 4

IV

Asgard was amazing – it was literally out of this world.

There had been mixed reactions to her appearance at first. The man with the sword had been the first to greet them, and his cool look of indifference towards Loki melted into one of bemusement when his gold eyes landed on her. The sight of them took Danny’s breath away.

“I’ve brought Loki back home,” announced Thor. He needlessly gestured to the man in his grip, whose hands were bound and his mouth muzzled – like a feral dog’s. “As well as the hero who cut his reign of terror short.”

Hero. The word bounced around her mind like a rubber ball.  

Understanding cleared the man’s expression. “My name is Heimdall,” he said, his voice deep and rough like a valley. “I thank you for your service.”

Danny shifted uncomfortably. That was the sort of thing you said to war veterans, not middle-schoolers. She thanked him anyway.

Thor smiled down at her. “Would you like to take the long way, or the shortcut?”  
She blinked up at him. “What’s the shortcut?”

Thor raised his hammer.

She regretted taking the shortcut.

* * *

Thor’s parents reacted similarly to Heimdall, but Odin warmed up to her quickly. She wasn’t sure if it was because she thwarted his wayward son’s schemes or because that was simply the type of person he was. Since she was under Thor’s custody as his guest, she was permitted to stay in the castle. Danny hadn’t actually planned on where she was staying, so while she was relieved, she was also dismayed by the king’s decision.

But Asgard was a tight collective who prized themselves on their benevolence. They were generally accepting of her, especially since she had a hand in preventing a war between Midgard and Asgard, and more than a few people were fascinated by her otherness. Naturally, there were also those opposed to her presence—she was an outsider staying at the palace itself—but Danny was quite used to that.

Thor, despite his easy-going disposition, was actually very busy. It made sense, considering he was the only heir to the throne not in prison. She rarely saw him, as he had to deal with the consequences of Loki’s power-trip, not to mention all the other disputes raging across the Nine Realms.  
  
Frigga, Thor’s mother, filled the void he had left and had taken Danny under her wing. She permitted her to explore the palace to her heart’s content, and was happy to accompany her to the library and explain about any of the tomes that confused her. A lot of the books were written in a different language, so Frigga placed a temporary translation spell on her.

Danny’s mouth fell open at the casual display of magic. This was much better than Thor’s gaudy show of thunder and power. “Can I learn to do that?” she asked enthusiastically.

Rather than laughing at her like her son had, Frigga adopted a thoughtful expression. “You do have an aptitude for spellwork, small though it may be,” she mused. “I wonder, do all Midgardians retain the same potential?”

Danny shrugged. She was as clueless as Frigga in that front, if not more so.

“Close your eyes,” instructed Frigga. Though her voice was low, it seemed deafening in the empty library. “Search deep within your soul. What do you see?”

At first, nothing. Then: “Blue,” she whispered. “It burns.” It kept her awake sometimes, all that blue. The sheer brightness of it all had dimmed considerably since she arrived in Asgard, but if she released her grip on reality for long enough, Danny knew it would strive to consume her again.

Frigga placed a hand on Danny’s arm, surprising her. Her eyes flew open just in time to see the concern on the queen’s face.

“My son says the tesseract and sceptre were both destroyed when forced together,” she said. “Is that true?”

Danny nodded hesitantly. “That’s what they told me. Not one speck of it remained.”

“I see.” Frigga’s lips twisted before she forced them into a smile. “How would you like to go to the markets? Your outfit is lacking in the jewellery department.”

Danny glanced down at her hands. They were undecorated, unlike Frigga’s with her bangles and rings. The gold really did complement the dress robes the Asgardians were partial to.

She smiled. “I’d like that.”

Danny had been at Asgard for a month now, and she had yet to see a single day that wasn’t bright with sunshine. When she pointed that out to Frigga on their way out of the palace, the queen had smile conspiratorially and informed her that the Midgardian idea of heaven was based off Asgard.

She received a squinty-eyed stare at that. It sounded suspect, but Danny didn’t know enough about mythology to question her claim.

If she turned out to be telling the truth, though, Danny wouldn’t have been surprised. Asgard was a group of closely-knit individuals; everyone knew everyone, and so they all looked out for another. The planetary body still had its fair share of problems, as any land filled with people did, but these issues were on a smaller scale than the ones Earth had. There was no poverty, no homelessness, no starvation. Asgard was no utopia, but it was as close as the galaxy was going to get.

Like every other afternoon, the streets of Asgard were abuzz with the hustle and bustle of daily life. Danny didn’t like going out undisguised much, because the locals could spot a foreigner a mile away, and they tended to fling questions at her nonstop. Some were harmless, like What’s Midgard like? Does everyone look like you? or Are you a princess of Midgard? But some were annoyingly invasive. One person asked her if Midgardians truly were brutes who couldn’t stop harming each other – which, well, fair enough.

Everyone left her alone now that she was with the queen. They were respectful but amiable, and that was how Danny knew she could place her complete trust in Frigga. And Frigga probably sensed that, because the next day she approached Danny’s chambers with a stack of books drifting in behind her.

“Before we get started on the practical aspects of magic,” she said in lieu of a greeting, “you must read up on its theory.”

Danny, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, grinned.

When Thor returned a few days later, singed and batter but not grievously injured, he was pleasantly surprised by his mother’s fondness for her. Later, at dinner, he lowered his voice to what was a whisper for him but what was actually an average level of volume for any other person and said,  
“Thank you for taking care of my mother.”

She shot him a bemused stare. “She’s the one that’s been taking care of me, though.”

A chuckle rumbled through Thor, but it was tinged with melancholy. “After Loki received his life sentence in prison, my mother has been distraught. She thinks we have not picked up on her quiet trips to the dungeons, but little gets by Heimdall or my father.” He sipped at his wine; the servants had brought out the good stuff in preparation for the golden prince’s successful return. “You’re a perfect shape for the hole in her heart, Girl of Iron.”

 _She sees me as Loki’s replacement?_ Danny blanched. She didn’t want to think of the implications of that, not when Thor was peering at her with dimmed optimism. “I actually don’t go by that title,” she chuckled awkwardly.

“Defender of the Earth, then?” suggested Thor, grinning.

Her responding smile was much more natural. “Just Danny is fine.”

“Danny the Defender!”

Down the table, Volstagg—one of Thor’s warrior friends—slammed down his goblet with relish. “Danny the Great!” he chimed in. He probably didn’t even know what was going on, judging by the red tinge of inebriation coloring his cheeks.

Fandral punched his blonde teammate lightly. “Quiet down, you oaf,” he said fondly.

Sif and Hogun shared an amused look.

Thor leaned back in his seat, content with the atmosphere.

Danny couldn’t help but notice his eyes darted towards the empty seat across table where Loki should’ve been.

* * *

Despite having just returned from a week of battle, Thor was restless. He wanted to be out and about, but he knew it wasn’t proper decorum to leave for Asgard again so soon. His people were experiencing an undercurrent of doubt in his family’s leadership thanks to Loki’s antics, and Thor needed to stay in public eye to reassure them that those doubts were unfounded.

And what better companion to have than the Girl of Iron? Not only had she been instrumental in stopping Loki, she was a bright young girl who could warm the hearts of the Jotuheim themselves.  
  
Okay, that was a bit of a stretch. But people generally adored children, especially exotic ones from the foreign land of Midgard.

Thor wandered through the commercial district with Danny in tow. He was greeted with large grins and friendly waves topped off with the occasional offer of a meal or a snack. Thor waved off cheerily, but Danny accepted.

“You know,” he began conversationally as they made their way out of town, “the cooks were very vexed when I announced your vegetarianism the other day.”

Danny frowned into her muffin. Prior to her trip to Asgard, she had no compunctions about eating meat. But that was before Sif took her out to the farmlands and showed her the slaughtering process.  
  
“On Midgard, we have this thing called factory farming,” she said, frown deepening. “Animals are raised for the slaughter, but they never seen sunlight or grass or anything beyond the metal cages they’re born in. I always knew that, on some level, but I never really connected their pain with the food I ate.”

Was that Sif’s point, he wondered. To show the child the value of life? Or had she merely wanted to test Danny the Defender’s mettle? Either way, his friend seemed to disapprove of her, and Thor was forced to remind her that Midgardian children weren’t as robust as those on Asgard.

“Vegetarianism isn’t too hard.” Danny dismissed her struggle with a light shrug. “It’s fun picking my own produce here.”

“What will you do when you return to Midgard?” he asked, genuinely interested.

“Eat corn for the rest of my life?”

“An admirable goal.”

Thor was glad she enjoyed physical labor, because their hike today was no walk in the park. As they passed by notable landmarks, Thor recounted the history behind them. She especially enjoyed the tales behind the waterfall and mountainside, and continued to pepper him questions about water nymphs and golems as they hiked upwards.

“Wow,” she wheezed as they took a break. “My endurance sucks.”

“You’re doing magnificently for a child of your age and stature.”

Danny narrowed her eyes at him, attempting to decipher the sincerity behind his words, but gave up with a wave of her hand. “I used to be better. Back home.”

Thor gestured for her backpack to lessen her burden. “There are classes for young aspiring soldiers,” he informed her. “If you wish, I could sign you up.”

“I’ll consider it.”

Twenty minutes later, as they reached the apex of the cliff, she took him up on his offer. 

* * *

Giggles and snickers filled the air of the training hall. They were all directed at her, of course, and Danny shrunk into her training gear in embarrassment. She was the sole thirteen-year-old among the ten- and eleven-year-old Asgardians corralled in the hall. Those her age were naturally in a higher level class as per their skillset.

“Settle,” commanded their instructor. The muscles in her arms rippled as she placed her hands on her hips. “Be respectful to your comrade in arms.”

“But she’s not even Asgardian,” a brunette pointed out from the edge of the group.

“That doesn’t matter. In real battles, you will fight alongside peoples of other origins; as long as their resolve and intent aligns with yours, the circumstances of their birth are irrelevant. Understood?”

“Understood,” the children repeated. In a few decades’ time the chant would probably be intimidating, especially on the battlefield, but right now with their goofy smiles and goofier voices, it just sounded silly.

Her mom would’ve blown a gasket if she knew her daughter was enrolled in a program that basically promoted the concept of child soldiers. Here in Asgard, though, no such stigma existed. Besides, it was more like a mix of fitness and survival camps than actual militaristic indoctrination. Was this what being a cadet was like?

Danny stored that idea for later. Right now, she had laps to run. Then came the push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and finally practise with wooden swords. They weren’t real swords, sure, but they still hurt like hell when struck.

At least they stopped teasing her after she got in a few good hits. Begrudging acceptance filled its void. That, in turn, developed into camaraderie a day later.

A guard watched over her in bemusement as Danny went straight from the dining room to her chambers after breakfast. She came back out with her rollerblades in hand. They were her spare, the ones she used in New York whenever she was forced along one of Dad’s and Pepper’s business trips.

The guard followed her to the empty courtyard. It was gorgeous, if rarely used. Inspired by her renewed interest in getting back into shape, Danny decided to bring out her skates and sharpen her skills before they grew dull from neglect.

Several people came and went as they witnessed the apparently unique Midgardian sport. Danny hoped they enjoyed the sight of her falling and stumbling, because that was what her morning was spent on. When she finally nailed three twirls in a row, a round of applause reached her ears.

The sound was so startling she almost tripped. Fortunately, she managed to salvage her pride, and used the momentum to whirl around.

Two people around her age smiled back at her look of confusion. Danny recognised the star-shaped birthmark on the boy’s arm and the jagged scar on the girl’s chin, and smiled slightly in greeting.

“You’re in my class, right?” she asked, skating slowly towards them.

The boy’s eyes were glued to the movement while the girl nodded. “I’m Dana; this is my twin brother, Dani.”

Danny blinked. “I’m Danny.”

Dani finally met her eyes. “Odd,” he concluded.

She nodded in agreement.

“You’re probably wondering why we’re here,” prompted Dana. Her hair was in a complex up-do Danny knew she could never replicate. “Our mother is the commander, you see, so she brings us here while she makes her weekly reports to the Allfather.”

“Queen Frigga told us you were here,” added Dani. He fiddled with the end of his dress robes. “Said we should greet you.”

“Hi,” offered Danny.

The three of them shared a grin.

It was perhaps the fastest friends she had ever formed. The twins were evidently interested in her rollerskates, so she let them try her pair out. After a brief debate, they decided to take turns. Dani was the first to go simply because his desire to do so was so palpable. While he stumbled around the courtyard, Dana turned to her and discussed tactics. Most of it went over Danny’s head, but she got the sense the Asgardian girl was trying to help her out with dismal combat skills.

“Thanks,” she replied somewhat contritely. “That was my first time using a sword.”

“I could tell.”

She earned herself the stink-eye for that.

* * *

Dana had just finished her go on the skates when her mother came to collect them. She accompanied Frigga, who was wearing what Danny called her queen-like smile.

“Children,” called Commander Kari. Her expression was warmer – warmer than it had been even when she praised the top performer in class yesterday. “Let’s not overstay our welcome.”

Frigga laughed demurely, and Danny wondered what it’d be like if that sort of chuckle had come from Thor’s visage instead.

Danny snapped out of that delusion long enough to bid goodbye to the twins and their mother. She’d see them the day after next anyway.

“So,” began Frigga as she all but glided over. Her robes were a spring green today. “What was your reception of the Commander’s offspring?”

Danny’s first instinct was to shrug dismissively; Dana and Dani were kids, and behaved aptly. But doing in front of the queen would be disrespectful at best, and offensive at worst.

“Dana is bold. I’m assuming she was born first? She naturally takes charge,” clarified Danny. “She’s probably inspired by her mother.”

The queen hummed thoughtfully. “And her brother?”

“Simpler. But not in a bad way.”

Frigga smiled as though pleased. “Do you trust them?”

Uh. “I barely know them.”

“But?”

Danny bit her lip. “They struck me as strange. Too eager to be familiar?”

A nod from Frigga confirmed her suspicions. “While most are quick to denounce my son Loki’s ambitions as rotten and misguided, a small portion of our people find themselves agreeing with him.”

“Like…the Commander?” Even the twins?

Frigga heaved a sigh. It was the weariest thing she had heard coming from the usually composed regent.

“Some families recall what Asgard was like before we chose to become peace-keepers. They remember my husband not as the benevolent king, but as an imperialist who ruled with an iron fist.

Danny startled. Her eyes flicked towards the luscious courtyard and the colorful plants decorating it. To think it had such a dark history…

“This was before our sons came into our lives,” continued Frigga, lost in thought. “When it was just Odin, myself, and…” She trailed off, eyes damp with regret.

“No matter.” She collected herself almost instantly. “I suppose we must now focus on the future.”

“And the present,” added Danny, feeling like she needed to contribute to the mostly one-sided conversation.

Frigga seemed to consider her words. “And the present.”

A change in environment was necessary to clear the air and take their minds off the previous topic. Frigga showed Danny to her study, which was unlike her mom’s in that it was wide, spacious and brightly lit. The enormous windows offered a wide view of the courtyard and the gardens.

“How have your studies been going?” inquired Frigga as she took a seat by the coffee table. It was prepped with tea and snacks.

Danny seated herself across from her. “Slow,” she admitted. “There are so many branches of magic – and the history of it covers ten volumes alone.”

Frigga laughed lightly as she poured them some tea. “I suppose it is rather unfair for me to expect you to read so intensely. So allow me to summarize it for you.”

With barely a twitch of her fingers, the room grew dark despite the midday sun outside. An image of the palace appeared mid-air, except it was not yet fully constructed. A combination of science and magic was used to complete it, according to the narration Frigga was providing as her illusions continued.

Essentially, all magic aimed to construct. Frigga constructed illusions, as did Loki; Thor produced thunder and Odin could create enchantments so varied and potent only a fool would challenge him dead-on. Those who weren’t of royal blood could do simple things like levitation or the enhancement of physical attributes, but the one stream of sorcery that truly interested Danny was conjuration.

“It’s a skill that takes decades of practise and training,” warned Frigga.

But Danny couldn’t stop thinking about it. The ability to create something from nothing, to pull out objects and weapons from nowhere? With that power, the possibilities were limitless. While Frigga dissuaded her of pursuing that train of thought, she hadn’t explicitly forbidden her from doing so. In her free time, she read all she could about conjuration.

Months passed.  Danny trained herself in all aspects of life: mentally, physically, magically, tactically. When he needed to take his mind off things, Odin often sent for her and asked for her insight on certain matters. They humoured each other, and eventually he began asking about Midgard instead.

With the help of Dana and Dani, her combat skills improved. She was bumped up a class, and while she was dejected at no longer sharing a class with the twins and their mother, she was pleased that was on the same level as the other Asgardian children. Impressed by her progress, Frigga herself began training her.

It was gruelling. She was the queen for a reason, and Danny was always left with at least a bruise and a cut after each session. They alternated between lessons to give her body a break, and worked on her mind through studying magic. Her illusions weren’t bad for a mortal who had spent her entire life outside Asgard, and Frigga theorized that the blue within her was the source of her unprecedented prowess.

Emboldened by this, Danny continued to work on conjuration despite her dismal results. When it came to illusions, she could project a static image of herself; with conjuration, there was nothing.

There was one person who could help her… The question was: would he?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Danny threw on a dull cloak over her robes and headed to the dungeons. It was conveniently located underground deep beneath the palace, which was great for a multitude of reasons: the royal family could keep an eye out on the comings and goings of visitors to keep from any unwanted individuals conspiring with the prisoners; were there a breakout, few civilians would be harmed since the palace was literally the first thing the prisoners would encounter; and if members of the royal family wished to visit a prisoner, no one would be the wiser.

Danny didn’t bother sneaking around or creating a diversion to distract the guard at the entrance; she wasn’t skilled enough. Rather than sparking suspicion, she kept the hood of her cloak up but strode right in like she had the right to be there. Her face shifted to an expression of righteous indifference, AKA Queen Frigga’s game face. The guard watched her enter, but didn’t stop her.

 _Perks of living with the royals_ , mused Danny as she breathed a small sigh of relief.

Based on Frigga’s and Thor’s hushed conversations, the prisoner was on the very top floor. Danny took Asgard’s version of a lift up, up, up and got off at the highest level. The cells up here were spacious and well-furnished, because even if he was a prisoner, Loki was still a prince of Asgard.

His mouth split into a slightly deranged grin at the sight of her. “I was wondering when you’d come see me,” he gloated.

Danny raised an eyebrow. “And what led you to that assumption?” she asked coolly. On the inside, though, she was all jitters.

He bit out a laugh. “You mean to say you feel no repercussions from destroying the tesseract?”

Her hands clenched into fists as a surge of heat flared within her. It passed after several seconds, and forced her breathing to even out before meeting Loki’s eyes once more. She didn’t like the way they glinted as he took in her reaction.

“I didn’t come here for that,” she said through gritted teeth. “I came here because you’re the only person on Asgard who’s all but mastered the art of conjuration.”

“And?” He knew what she wanted, that much was clear, but he sure enjoyed dragging this out.

Danny raised her chin. “I want you to teach me. I’ve learned all the theory – it’s just the practical I’m failing at.”

“Why should I help you?”

Danny made a show of glancing around. “It’s not like you have anything better to do,” she pointed out dryly.

Loki’s nostrils flared, and Danny awarded herself a point on her mental scoreboard. “I’ll have you know I won’t be doing this free of charge,” he warned her needlessly.

“What do you want?”

Loki listed no less than a dozen items. “They’re all in my room.” As in, the only bedroom in the entire palace that was left untouched, even by the servants.

Since Loki was known infamously as the God of Mischief, Danny wasn’t going to trot off and do as he said while expecting recompense. The man had tried to murder his brother; he was not above recounting his word. So she came prepared.

Danny withdrew a piece of parchment from her pocket with a flourish. God, if only Midgardian dresses all had pockets like the robes here did.

Judging by the wrinkle in Loki’s brow, he realized the contract for what it was. Danny had it commissioned from one of the contractors in town; it was magically binding, and failure to complete the bargain from either party would result in dire consequences.

Well, not really. At most it would dye their hair a gaudy shade of green – considering the vanity of both participants, though, that was quite a big deal. The contractor offered a weightier repercussion—he was particularly vehement about paralysis of one or more limbs—but Danny wasn’t that desperate to learn conjuration.

There was no obvious door in the glass panel in front of her, but they must’ve gotten all that furniture into Loki’s cell somehow. Danny placed her palm against the glass and closed her eyes. There was a faint thrumming throughout. She visualised a chord and _pulled._

A small window, no larger than her arm, appeared. Danny hastily slipped the contract in while she still felt the chord. Rather than using a pen, Loki signed his name with the tip of his finger. His signature appeared magically, and just in time, too.

Danny lost her grip on the magic controlling the panel and withdrew the parchment. The contract hummed with magic momentarily before she tucked it away.

“Well,” drawled Loki, “it seems you may have some talent yet.”

Danny smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Danny acquires some more (super)dads

V

Danny pawed at her shirt. After a year in robes, wearing casual clothing again seemed so alien. She never realized how restrictive and uncomfortable Midgardian clothes could be – especially ones that had been purchased for her then-thirteen-year-old body. As soon as she returned to Earth, she was going shopping.

Frigga drew her into a warm hug. “You’re welcome back any time,” she said once more as she cradled Danny’s face. They were in the Bifrost observatory, along with its guardian Heimdall and Thor himself. Odin remained at the palace, having already received Danny’s formal farewell.

Without being too obvious, Danny leaned into Frigga’s touch. “I’ll come back soon,” she promised, stepping back with a smile.

She turned to Heimdall. “I just want to say,” she said rapidly, “that you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met.”

That done, Danny launched herself at Thor. As usual, he reacted in time; he dropped his hammer with a metallic _thunk_ and lifted her up in the air before she could try to tackle him to the ground. He—very, very carefully—tossed her to the side slowly enough so she could use the momentum of the fall to roll herself into a crouched position.

“That’s forty-nine to zero, now,” beamed Thor.

(She was the zero.)

“We should do this in front of Dad,” suggested Danny as she shouldered her pack.

Thor opened his mouth to retort when Heimdall inhaled sharply. “My liege,” he said solemnly, “I’ve lost sight of Jane Foster.”

All eyes turned to Heimdall in equal parts shock and horror. Heimdall’s observation skills were far superior to any other in the Nine Realms – to evade his senses, one had to be extremely talented…or in grave danger.

Thor’s hammer flew back to his open hand. “Take me to where she was last,” he ordered. As Heimdall began opening the portal, Thor mustered a smile for her. “Heimdall will take you wherever you wish. Til we meet again.”

* * *

Tony, unsurprisingly, was at the tower in NY. Heimdall dropped her off on the roof.

When she tried the door first, the handle wouldn’t budge. J.A.R.V.I.S. must’ve notified Tony of her arrival, though, because when she reached for it again, the door opened. Danny smiled and waved up at the sky before popping inside.

“Welcome home, Miss Danny,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said kindly.

“Hey J.A.R.V.I.S.,” she said, grinning. “Can you take me to where Dad is?”

“Of course.”

While the lifts weren’t as neat as the ones in Asgard, these were certainly faster. She covered ten floors in ten seconds, and was somewhat surprised to identify the room Tony was in as the break room. Tony never took breaks, not really.

He was right by the lift when she came out. “Welcome back, kid. You must be tired. How about a nap?”

She stared at him. “Uh, I didn’t fly here,” she pointed out. Her body grew cold as she registered the pronounced stress lines decorating Tony’s face. “Dad. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” He stepped to her left in attempt to prevent her from peering around him.

She made a quick calculation. “Thor gave me a sword.”

 _“What?_ ”

Sufficiently distracted, Danny darted around him and towards the only room with closed doors. She saw them before she even reached the doors, though; that was the downside of having transparent glass walls.

Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and an unknown man were seated around a coffee table. They were angled towards the seat that presumably held Tony. Judging by their cups, they had been there for a while now.

“Hey,” greeted Natasha. “How was the trip?”

“Enlightening,” she replied earnestly.

Tony wove around to get into the room. “You were joking before, right?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

He rolled his eyes as he took his seat. “I’m gonna kill him,” he muttered.

“Who’s this?” asked the man beside Steve. He had a slight gap between his two front teeth, just like Dana.

“A friend,” answered Tony.

The man arched an eyebrow. “You’re friends with a pre-teen?”

“I’m also friends with a ten-year-old in Tennessee. What’s your point?”

Danny shot him a wide-eyed look as she read between the lines. “You _are?_ ”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “No,” he told her wearily. “Rogers,” he said suddenly, turning to Steve. “Do you trust him?”

Steve nodded gravely. “With my life.”

Tony exhaled. “Wilson, this is my kid, Danny.”

Her eyes traveled from Steve’s undecorated fingers to the body language between him and Wilson. _Oh._ She suppressed her smile from growing to a ridiculous size. Adults didn’t congratulate each other over simple relationships, did they?

Wilson smiled politely at her. “Sam Wilson. How old are you, Danny?”

“Fourteen? I think.” There was a calendar by the fridge. She had returned just a few weeks shy of her birthday. “Yeah, fourteen.

“So…” she said in the silence that ensued. “Is something going on?”

The three men shared a look while Natasha cut straight to it. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone,” she declared.

_Where did you last put it?_

“I don’t think she needs to be here for this conversation,” interjected Tony. He placed a hand on her head, like she was still ten. “Leave this to the grown-ups.”

“Then she should at least hear what happened to you and your mansion,” piped up Natasha.

Tony winced. “Later,” he promised her with a gentle shove out the door.

Danny grumbled something uncomplimentary in a language no one else in the room knew. “Fine,” she snapped, “but I’m keeping the souvenir I got you.”

Fuming, Danny returned to the lift and headed to her room. Her phone was still on her desk right where she had left it; she snatched it up, threw her bag to the floor, and jumped onto her bed.

She spent the next hour catching up on the past year.

Time was a funny thing. Despite its constant presence, it felt so subjective. Depending on where you were and what you were doing, it could feel extremely slow or unreasonably fast. Somehow, for Danny, the past year had been both.

In addition to the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D.—which was kept mostly under wraps—a terrorist by the name of the Mandarin had attacked the mansion in Malibu in response to Tony Stark’s declaration of war with him.

 _My stuff._ Danny’s hand flew to her mouth in shock. Her mom’s album, her toy dog, everything she had brought with her from her apartment — it was all gone.

Not wanting to make a scene, Danny waited until Tony came to her. He found her buried beneath her blankets like a particularly angsty hermit crab.

“You okay?” he asked uncertainly.

She shoved an arm out of her cocoon. In her hand was her phone, its screen filled with images of the mansion being blown up.

“Ah,” he murmured, appearing sheepish. “Yeah, my bad.”

Her head popped out furiously. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, none of them polite, but all she could utter was: “My stuff.”

Tony winced. “I made digital copies of the album after you left,” he assured her quickly.

That was something, at least. Huffing, Danny turned her back to him. She had nothing more to say. Tony left.

She didn’t stay mad long, though. Danny thought herself a forgiving person by nature in that way. Her best friend in fifth grade called that being a pushover; her mom had dismissed that sentiment completely, admitting that she wished she had her daughter’s calm temperament. Her mom had been all fire and determination, which meant she could hold a grudge for life. Danny was half-surprised her mom’s ghost hadn’t appeared a la _Hamlet_ and urged her to avenge the past transgressions committed against her.

The longer she spent reading up on her dad’s plight with the Mandarin, the more she felt for him. She would never forgive him for so thoughtlessly egging the terrorist on, but she could at least acknowledge how much he had lost as well – his car collection, for example.

After a while, she wandered down to her dad’s workshop. He was working on a suit, as if the half-dozen suits displayed along the walls weren’t enough. Without saying a word, Danny took the empty seat by his desk and continued to browse her phone.

Once she had run out of news articles, YouTube videos, tumblr, facebook and twitter posts re: Mandarin vs Iron Man, she tried to dig up as much info as possible on the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Knowledge of the incident was much sparser and more difficult to find, that was for sure; Danny wasn’t sure if that was due to the freshness of the topic or because the secret organization was so hush-hush in the first place.

Tony paused his welding to answer his phone. He spoke warmly, so Danny knew Pepper was on the other end of the line. After a minute, he hung up and addressed her for the first time since she had come down.

“Pepper’s on her way,” he informed her, rummaging through his work station. “She’s bringing Chinese to celebrate your return.”

“Do you know if she bought any vegetarian dishes?” Pepper liked to eat healthy and clean, so there was a high chance that she had purchased meat-free meals.

Tony’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “Probably. Why? Are Asgardians vegetarians?” he asked a tad wryly. No doubt he was thinking of Thor’s muscles as he said that.

“No, but I am.”

“Uhh. Why?”

It was Danny’s turn to frown. She told him about how she was taken to an Asgardian farm and was taught how to kill an animal with as little fuss as possible. Sure, the pig hadn’t felt much pain, but Danny couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“It’s even worse when you consider factory farming,” she concluded.

Tony twirled a spanner in his hand. “You know produce isn’t exactly free of pain either, right?”

Danny’s eyes widened. “Plants can feel pain after all?”

“That’s not what I meant,” clarified Tony with a roll of his eyes. “Who do you think picks and packs the produce? Employees, right? Now, since you can pay people practically pennies, how much do you think they get paid per hour?”

She glanced down as she digested his words. “Not very much,” she guessed quietly. “Does this include, like, other industries as well?”

He saw through her words like they were a glass window. “Stark Industries doesn’t do that,” he assured her. “Not anymore, anyway.” His expression darkened tellingly.

Danny spun idly on her chair just to avoid staring at her dad’s face. Was he referring to Stane’s grip on the company? Or did Stark Industries’ shady work ethic extend further back, all the way to its founding days?

As her mom used to say: time for some investigative journalism. Which, for Danny, meant Google.

The results were depressing, to say the least. People were more surprised by Tony’s decision to pay back past employees than they were with the scummy wage theft in the first place. Apparently, it was per the norm for giant corporations like Stark Industries.

Things were even worse in other occupations. When Danny learnt about sweatshops, she almost rushed back upstairs to change into her dress robes. Those, at least, weren’t made by veritable slaves.

She tugged on her hair in frustration. “How is any of this legal?” she wondered out loud.

“Bribery. Corruption.” Tony flipped a helmet in his hands. “Lotta government workers benefit from the system.”

“Fuck the government.”

He laughed. “Tell that to Rhodey next time you see him.”

* * *

The first thing Pepper asked him as soon as she greeted the kid was: “What did you do?”

“Me?” Tony turned to her, genuinely shocked. “What do you mean?”

Pepper folded her arms in front of her, unimpressed. “No one should be that stressed after a year off in another planet.”

Tony wouldn’t be sure about that. This was Thor’s home they were talking about here.

But Pepper had a point. Tony glanced to the side, where the kid was thoughtfully grabbing tableware and cutlery despite the boxes and containers their takeout had already arrived in. Her brow was knit with tension, and there was definitely a hunch in her shoulders as she set the table.

“She’s concerned for the state of humanity,” Tony replied, turning back to Pepper. Her expression grew incredulous as he recapped the conversation they had had in the workshop an hour ago.

Pepper heaved a sigh. “What kind of fourteen-year-old worries about things like that?”

“Maybe she did some humanitarian stuff in Asgard,” offered Tony.

“Can I have all the greens?” she called from the table. She was already seated, and was waiting for them with thinning patience.

“You can have my share,” replied Tony as he went to join her. “Pepper will want hers, though.”

“So,” Pepper said with forced brightness as she sat down. “How was your vacation?”

“Amazing,” gushed the kid. Her eyes were bright as she recounted a good chunk of her trip, her chopsticks remaining mostly unused. He wondered if she even noticed the way he had mastered his use of them. “The queen invited me back any time.”

“That’s wonderful,” Pepper said earnestly. “Did you make many friends?”

The kid chewed on a veggie as she contemplated that question. “I think so.”

Not a great response. Tony’s lips pulled downwards into a frown. Happy—her guardian, as far as her middle school knew—and J.A.R.V.I.S., the kid had a hard time getting along with others. She had almost been suspended once because she had punched another girl. Happy had been called in, but he had never told Tony about the incident.

“I warned her you were gonna find out one way or the other,” said Happy, shrugging. “But she said not to bother, because it wasn’t like you were gonna care.”

God, he really was the worst, wasn’t he?

He cleared his throat audibly. “School resumes in two months,” he noted.

She took the hint. “Do you want me to enroll?”

“Well…”

“Yes,” jumped in Pepper. She set down her chopsticks. “School is important, both in terms of education and socially. You can’t keep hanging out with adults, Danny.”

The kid frowned. “Why not?”

“You won’t be able to interact with people your own age, otherwise. You’ll miss out on the chance to develop some great connections,” Pepper explained patiently. “Friends are important no matter how old you are.”

Danny’s face flitted threw several complicated expressions before settling on one of determination. “Sure, I’ll start my freshman year of high school. In exchange… I want Stark Industries to tackle wage exploitation.”

“That issue has already been handled,” said Pepper, bemused.

The kid shook her head. “I don’t mean within the company. In general.”

Pepper shot him an incredulous look that said ‘this is all your fault’ but Tony ignored that in favour of treating his daughter’s request seriously. “Have a plan in mind?” he asked, reaching for the noodles.

“I do indeed, father.” To their mild disbelief, Danny withdrew a piece of paper from her pocket and began unfolding it. “First: buy from ethical sources only. Kick up a fuss about it via social media or when being interviewed to promote the cause. Secondly: Buy out other companies and pay their employees fairly. Eventually, it should snowball enough so that other industries feel pressured to up their game. Then we tackle world hunger and homelessness.”

She put down her paper and smiled.

“That’s…rather ambitious of you,” Pepper informed her diplomatically. “We might not be able to bring your plans to fruition, but we’ll try our best.”

Danny shrugged and picked up her chopsticks. “There’s always plan B.”

“What’s plan B?” asked Tony curiously.

“World domination.”

Pepper sighed yet again.

* * *

Several days later, Steve Rogers moved into the tower.

No one told her, of course. Danny had discovered it by chance upon wandering into the kitchen in nothing but her PJs – which were Avengers-themed. Steve was making coffee, and the sight of Captain America in her kitchen was enough to give her pause.

Then they noticed her outfit.

“The Thor ones were sold out,” she explained. It was difficult finding clothes she wanted from brands that didn’t use slaves.

“They would be my first choice, too,” confessed Steve. “Um, I’m not sure if Tony has told you, but I’ll be living here for now.”

“He did not,” she said curtly. “When did you get here?”

“Last night.” He reached for the freshly-made coffee. “You’re not a coffee person, are you?”

“The most I can handle is a chai latte,” she admitted. “I was going to make toast – want any?”

“I’m good, thank you.” He glanced at the clock. It was eleven; no doubt the ex-soldier had woken at least five hours ago. “How was Asgard?”

Danny bit back her sigh. She was going to have to publish an article on her trip at the rate this question was being asked. “It was good,” she said instead as she reached for her homemade bread. “Much better than Earth, at any rate.”

That reminded her of something.

“Mind watching my toast for a minute?” she asked Steve. Without waiting for a response—she had a feeling he would comply anyway—Danny dashed back to her room. She grabbed something from her desk and returned to the kitchen with it in-hand.

She presented it to Steve, who was just turning off the toaster. “For you,” she announced, smiling. “As a welcoming gift.”

Steve accepted the small potted plant carefully. “From Asgard?” he guessed aptly. It looked like a regular plant, with its green stalks and rounded leaves.

“Yep.” Danny grabbed some leftover butter. She hadn’t gotten around to churning her own just yet, but at least this stick was purchased from trustworthy sources. “It only needs water, not sunlight, to live. It also glows in the dark.”

“Thank you,” he said, sounding touched. His eyes creased as he smiled down at the alien plant. “I’m afraid I have nothing to give you in exchange.”

“It’s a gift,” she reminded him, laughing. “But…”

“Yes?” he gently prompted as she trailed off.

“Can you take me camping?” she asked, toying with the lid of the jam jar.

Steve leaned back in his seat, silently appraising her request. “I wouldn’t mind,” he said. “But why me?”

Danny turned her back to him so he wouldn’t see her irritated eye-roll. “There’s no one else,” she murmured. Clearing her throat, she applied her jam to her toast. “Everyone’s busy, and I’m not saying you aren’t, being a superhero and all, but… It just seems more likely. Sam can come, too, of course.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know,” said Steve with an encouraging smile. The posters really didn’t do it justice.

Danny brightened. “Thanks, Steve.”

To her pleasant surprise, they went camping less than a week after she had voiced her desire for the trip. Steve had been the one to inform Tony, so all Danny had to do was pack up and choose the location.

They chose an isolated destination in a heavily wooded area. It was a five-hour drive away, and while Steve and Sam took the wheel most of the time, they allowed her to take Sam’s car for a spin during the quieter stretches of the road.

“Huh,” she said five minutes in. “This is pretty easy.”

“That’s because you’re on a straight, empty road,” Sam informed her from the seat beside her.

“Can you teach me how to drift like in Mario Kart?”

 “A video game,” Sam clarified for Steve over his shoulder. “And no. Definitely not.”

Danny pouted.

She remained behind the wheel for another ten minutes before they found a place to pull over and Sam booted her out of the driver’s seat. Danny returned to the back of the car, where she contentedly stuck her head out the window and enjoyed the sights nature offered them. It reminded her of the mountains in Asgard.

She breathed in deeply, savoring the taste of the mostly unpolluted air. “You never really notice how gross our environment is until you’ve been on a different planet,” she said thoughtfully.

“Tell me about it,” drawled Sam.

“It’s one of the first things I noticed about this time period,” Steve noted solemnly. “The world has definitely gotten a lot more polluted since my time. People were trying so hard back then too.”

“They did,” assured Sam, never taking his eyes off the road. According to the occasional sign, it wasn’t unusual for a deer to jump out the shrubbery to the surprise of drivers. “There are around ninety companies responsible for more than half of global emissions. People aren’t the problem.”

“Interesting,” noted Danny.

“Let me guess,” said Sam, the corner of his mouth turning upwards into an amused smirk, “Stark Industries is gonna buy out those ninety corporations?”

“We can damn well try,” she muttered beneath her breath as she unlocked her phone.

The sun was reaching the apex of the sky when they reached their destination. They parked the car in the lot, which was entirely empty save for one Camry, and began their trek to the perfect campsite. Steve carried most of the gear in addition to his shield, while Sam carried the rest along with his funky metal pack. When she asked him what it was, he merely smiled and promised to show her once they were on higher ground.

 _Jet pack_ , she thought instantly. But that was sort of a let-down, compared to what the others had, so Danny convinced herself it must’ve been something else entirely.

As for her own gear… Tony refused to implant a chip into her arms like he had with himself to call his suit towards him, and Danny wasn’t exactly keen on spending the next two days dressed in armor, so was ostensibly left vulnerable to the world. It was a testament to Tony’s trust in the abilities of Steve (and perhaps Sam) that he let this be.

Danny found herself unwinding as she hiked. All her real-world concerns melted off her as she took in all the green around her. Steve led the way while Sam took the rear, neither of the men rushing her despite what would have been a slow pace for them.

To keep them from growing too bored, Danny asked how they met. The short answer was that they had been jogging the same route. The long answer involved overthrowing a corrupt government organization together.

She sighed wistfully. “That’s so romantic.”

Steve faltered at that while Sam burst into laughter. “We’re not an item,” wheezed Sam.

She turned to him, confused. “You’re not?” Her next question—“Then why do you look at him so lovingly?”—went unasked.

“Did Tony tell you we were?” asked Steve as he helped her up a particularly patchy section of trail.

Danny tried not to ogle his muscles. Would hers develop after puberty, she wondered? “Nope,” she said, dismissing Steve’s suspicions. “I just made—an apparently inaccurate—guess. My bad.”

Steve shook his head, thankfully seeming more amused than irritated. “You’re Tony’s kid all right.”

She gazed at him quizzically, but he didn’t elaborate.

After a few more minutes, they chose a nice clearing to settle down at. It was close to the lake they just passed, and was rife with stones they could use for a fire-pit. Sam guided her construction of one while Steve set up the tents – one for each of them. Danny thought it would be more fun if they shared a huge one, but they made do with what they already had. She helped set up the final one when the pit was finally made. It took her ten times as long as Steve had, however.

She groaned. “Why are these so stupidly hard to put up?” she asked, gripping the tent poles tightly. “Someone should invent a tent that sets itself up, like a bouncing castle.”

“That someone should be you,” called Sam as he dumped his bag into his tent.

“True,” she replied, already mentally adding it to her list.

“I take it this is your first time camping?” asked Steve as she struggled with the tent.

When she hummed an affirmative, Sam said, “Really? Don’t all rich kids go to a summer camp at some point in their lives?”

 _Do they?_ Danny frowned even as she finally got the poles connecting. “I’m not rich, though.”

Sam and Steve both gave her a look at that.

“I’m not!” she insisted. “My dad is, sure, but I didn’t grow up rich.”

“How did you grow up then?” Steve asked delicately.

“Normally. My mom raised me by herself, then…” Danny threaded the pole through the canvas carefully. “I found Dad when I was eight and I’ve lived with him ever since. You could still say I technically grew up with money, but last week was the first time he ever really acknowledged me as his daughter, so.” She shrugged. “I’m as much a tenant as you are, Steve.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Sam asked quietly.

Danny shrugged again; she didn’t know what to say.

Steve shook his head slightly. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw how he reacted after New York. I didn’t even know Stark—Tony—was capable of any other emotion besides smug amusement and indignant irritation before that incident,” he confessed with a half-hearted smile. “Trust me, Danny; he cares about you.”

Sam cut the tension with a low whistle. “You were there when that attack went down?”

“More than that,” said Steve proudly. “She was the reason things didn’t escalate.”

Danny scoffed even as a delighted blush decorated her cheeks. “Y’all would’ve gotten around to it eventually.”

“That’s very generous of you to say,” replied Steve, a tad wryly.

Danny poked her tongue out at him.

The rest of the trip went exceptionally. While Danny helped make fishing rods out of nothing and set up traps for rabbits, she didn’t really partake in either activity, wary of harming innocent creatures. Sure, they could’ve brought their own fishing rods, but where was the fun in that? Besides, she felt like a survivalist in a post-apocalyptic society doing things the simple way.

On the second day they hiked up further. Between deep intakes of breath, Danny recounted her experiences in Asgard in exchange for Steve’s and Sam’s own anecdotes. She and Sam even sparred once, but _very_ lightly – no weapons allowed.

When they reached an appropriately high point, they set up camp in preparation for sunset. She would finally be able to see the stars tonight.

Before that, though, Sam revealed what his pack was truly about.

Danny gasped as Sam fell into the air, only to come swooping back up with a pair of mechanical wings saving him from what should’ve been a painful fall.

“Danny,” said Steve, grinning, “meet the Falcon.”

Sam stuck the landing with a pose. “So?”

Danny rushed over to him. She circled him once, taking in his wings. “Do you ever get nervous flying so high?”

“At first, yeah, it was a little nerve-wracking. I’m used to it now, though.”

“If I were you, I’d never fly during the daytime,” she confided in him.

His brow drew together in confusion. “Why?”

“Because that’s like tempting fate. Y’know, Icarus and all that.” The irony would kill her before the impact did.

“You’re one weird kid.”

Huh. Happy had said almost the exact same thing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers are one big family (for now). Danny enrolls into Midtown School of Science and Technology.

VI

When they returned from the camping trip, Danny came home to the sight of Thor emerging from the elevator. Her body moved without thinking and she found herself rushing towards him.

Thor shoved one meaty hand in front of him, deftly catching her face-first. She managed to hit the brakes quick enough to avoid breaking her nose against his palm.

“I believe that makes this the fiftieth attempt,” he informed her jovially.

Danny stepped back, furiously rubbing her face. “I’ll get you one day,” she promised him with a scowl.

He beamed. “I look forward to it.”

“Do I wanna know what that was all about?” asked Tony as he strode over.

She and Thor exchanged a look. “Nope,” she decided. “Wait. Thor, why are you here?”

“I’ve decided to stay in Midgard for the foreseeable future,” he explained. “Both for Jane’s sake and Earth’s.”

“But mostly Jane’s,” added Tony.

Danny frowned, perplexed. “Won’t your mom miss you?” And his dad, too, probably. Odin had always struck her as standoffish.

Thor’s face sobered abruptly. “My mother has passed,” he said solemnly. “She is in Valhalla now.”

Danny felt her world tilt on its axis. Her heart was lodged in her throat; she had to push past it to choke out a disbelieving, “What?”

Pain seeped into Thor’s eyes, for once revealing a glimpse of his true age. “You may want to sit down for this.”

She stumbled into the nearest seat, Tony hovering over her worriedly as Thor summarized what had happened after she left Asgard. A mysterious power had invaded Jane’s system, and in order to figure out a cure, Thor had brought her back to Asgard. The Dark Elves seeking that power attacked Asgard to get to Jane. Frigga had fought a pair of them off, and died for her efforts. In the end, Thor and Loki—Tony’s eye twitched at his name—managed to defeat the Elves for good. The aether was removed from Jane, and Asgard was at peace once more.

Rage ripped through Danny. After all that, Thor was still in Midgard? Why? His people needed him, especially having just lost their queen!

“Is Jane in any more danger?” she asked, barely refraining from growling the question.

“She’s safe,” Thor assured her.

Her lips peeled back into a snarl. “Then why are you here?”

The ferocity she was emanating had Thor hesitating a moment. “Because we wish to be with each other,” he said simply.

The urge to laugh disdainfully was strong, but she was already being plenty rude as it was. Once she realized that, the red-hot anger abated until she was left feeling oddly cold and detached.

_Frigga…_

Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. She was sobbing proper now, the awful kind that wracked her body and left her wheezing. Thor, undoubtedly still smarting from his loss, instinctively reached out to her. He held her close, his own sorrow almost palpable.

“I can’t believe I’ll never see her again,” she whispered, her voice cracking with grief.

“She’s in a better place now,” promised Thor. These weren’t empty words, either; Valhalla was a real place, and definitely the best afterlife one could hope for.

Danny moved out of Thor’s comforting embrace and swiped at the mess her face had become. Thor offered her his cape, but Tony fortunately had some tissues handy.

“Thanks,” she said, hiccupping lightly. She stretched herself out on the couch. “I’m taking a nap now.”

She fell asleep instantly. It was a light, uneasy thing, broken quickly when Tony deposited her in her bed. He was just tucking her in when she pried open her salt-crusted eyes.

“Hey,” he said, clearly uncomfortable but not uncaring. “You okay?”

“Frigga was Thor’s mom,” she said instead. “And she acted like she was mine, too.”

“Oh.” Tony sat down around the halfway point of her bed. “What was she like?”

“She was so cool,” sighed Danny, eyes glued to the carpet. “Kind and wise and understanding and patient. But also cunning and calculating and a total badass. She’s just like Mom was.”

“Like your mom, but an Asgardian,” noted Tony.

The corner of mouth twitched into a shadow of a smile. “My Asgardian mom.”

There was a chasm where her heart should’ve been. It would never be fully healed, not really, and the recent loss had simply torn it further open. She felt empty; untethered, like she was a soft nudge away from drifting off for good.

“I’m going to forget Frigga too,” she predicted quietly. “Just like I’ve forgotten Mom.”

She still had memories of the woman who had single-handedly raised her, but they were faint and foggy, like she was looking at them through warped glass. In a few years’ time, that window may be boarded up completely.

Tony leaned back on his hands, his eyes focused on the space above her head. “I lost my parents a few years older than you are now,” he began musingly. “They both died in a car crash at the same time. I’ll never forget them, just like you’ll never forget your mom. Or Frigga.”

Danny’s hands clenched around her blanket. She pulled herself up slowly. “I never knew,” she murmured. “I’ll never forget you either, Dad.”

He huffed a tiny laugh. “I don’t plan on biting the dust any time soon, kid.”

Her responding smile was glassy and faraway.

* * *

The adults in her life spent the next few days tiptoeing around her. In a few years’ time, she’d find it amusing, but right now, all Danny wanted to do was sleep. By day two, though, her body had decided that that was enough rest, so she was left staring at her ceiling while she bundled herself up in bed. That grew boring, too, eventually, so she turned on the TV and watched her shows.

People dropped by to have a word and convince her to eat, but the only person who really kept her company was Pepper. She joined her, usually with a salad in hand, and shared details about the work she and the humanitarian branch of Stark Industries had achieved.

“We’re thinking of rebranding ourselves,” she declared between bites of cos. “Industries is too technical, not to mention stigmatized thanks to years of weapons productions.”

Danny hummed, her eyes on the TV. Bong Soon and Sun Ae were finally meeting for the first time ever, and she was eager to see how things would progress from thereon.

“I was thinking you could help us come up with a name.”

That did the trick. Danny paused the drama and turned to Pepper, surprised. “Why me?”

“Well, you’re the founder of this branch,” explained Pepper. “And you’ve already been credited for most of the ideas.”

“Really?” she said, inexplicably touched. “Am I listed as Danielle Stark, or…?”

“We kept it as Danny Zhang.” Pepper balanced her salad in her lap so her hand was free to brush the hair from Danny’s face. A vicious pang struck through her as she recalled all the times Frigga would do the same thing. “Just in case someone got too nosey and came close to the truth.”

Danny smiled outwardly and voiced her agreement. On the inside, though, she wondered if she would ever be able to proudly wear the name Stark.

After Pepper left, Danny looked up her name. There were quite a few articles about her humanitarian work, or so they called it, and while some freely voiced their praise for what Stark Industries were trying to do, others were spiteful about it. The thought of assisting the less fortunate really seemed to rub them the wrong way.

“People are so weird, J.A.R.V.I.S.,” she surmised from the inside of her helmet. Since J.A.R.V.I.S.’s system wasn’t installed in any of the bedrooms or bathrooms, she donned her helmet whenever she wanted to speak to him. It was a revised version of her old one, modified and updated by her dad in the year she had spent on Asgard. The rest of her suit was almost done.

“Indeed they are,” the AI replied, sounding just a tad exasperated.

She spent the rest of the day bouncing ideas for names with the bodiless voice. Using the Avengers’ title or even Iron Man’s was a possibility, but J.A.R.V.I.S. shut that down before it could take root due to the unpredictability of the heroes’ reputation. Although her dad and the others did their best to stop, like, world domination, there always seemed to be collateral damage they were deemed responsible for. She saw the _Incredibles_ film in a whole new light now.

When she came down to the dinner that night, she was stunned to see who was waiting at the table. Pepper, Tony, Steve, Bruce, Natasha and Clint were lounging around the kitchen, ostensibly preparing dinner. The scene was so surreal Danny walked out the room and back in again. Nope, they were still there.

Danny scampered over to Pepper, who was frowning at the rice cooker as if it was posing her a particularly tricky riddle. “What’s with all the guests?” she asked in a low whisper.

“They’re not so much guests as they are residents,” she reminded her. “Natasha and Clint duck out the most, though; Bruce is normally working with your dad.”

“Speaking of work,” Danny said, handing her the folded note she had been carrying, “I wrote down some ideas for the name.”

Pepper brightened. “Thanks. I’ll pass it along to the board.”

Satisfied, Danny poked around in the kitchen a bit. Somewhat surprisingly, Steve was the head chef tonight. He was whipping up a roast and a soup of some kind; dessert would probably be the ice cream Danny had made several days’ ago.

She inched towards Clint hesitantly. Her hands fiddled with her jacket as she stood before him. “Can you teach me how to use a bow and arrow?” she asked in one take.

Clint’s eyes flickered towards Tony, who gave them both a narrow-eyed stare. “No weapons,” he declared.

“I already know how to use a sword.” Well, more or less. “Isn’t a bow and arrow, like, an improvement?”

Tony rolled his eyes skywards like he was cursing Thor inside his head. “Fine. Clint, make sure she doesn’t shoot herself.”

“I haven’t agreed yet,” said Clint, frowning at Tony. He turned to Danny with a smile. “Sure. We’ll start tomorrow.”

Natasha arched an eyebrow.

Clint’s face cleared with remembrance. “We’ll start the day after tomorrow.”

 _Yes!_ “Badass,” she crooned.

Tony made a noise of indignation. “And operating a weaponized, flying suit isn’t?”

“It would be if I ever did,” she reminded him none too kindly.

He opened his mouth to reply but Pepper cut him off with a swipe of her rice scooper. “After dinner,” she said sternly.

Wisely, he obeyed.

A no-shop talk rule must’ve been arranged prior to her arrival, because no one at the table discussed their work. That didn’t leave much for the barely acquainted adults to discuss, though, so most of them tried to get Danny to do most of the talking.

“You’re on summer vacation, right?” prompted Clint as he sliced into a carrot. “What have you been doing these past few days?”

“I’ve been studying, reading, catching up on my shows, training, meditating, scrolling through people’s kickstarters and paying them off.” The sheer amount of people on their last legs on _gofundme_ were jaw-dropping.

“You mean I’ve been paying them off,” interjected Tony. It was his card she was using, after all.

She shrugged. Now that Danny realized the immensity of her dad’s net worth, she didn’t really feel bad using his money. “Oh,” she added, “I also plan on volunteering on one of the local animal shelters.” It was one of the few places she was permitted to volunteer at; the others had barred her due to her age.

“You might just be the busiest fourteen-year-old in the country,” chuckled Clint. He had a nice laugh; it was deep and hearty. He’d probably make a good Santa in a few decades’ times.

Still, she disagreed with his assertion. There were plenty of teens busier than her, their situations much more dismal as they struggled to make ends meet. No matter how many people she donated to, the strife never seemed to end. J.A.R.V.I.S. informed her it was a systemic thing, that nothing would truly change until society reshaped itself.

That was where Pepper’s (and Tony’s) company came into play. She wondered if either of them would be interested in a government position.

Danny quietly fiddled with her napkin.

“Penny for your thoughts?” probed Natasha.

She looked up with a start. “I...was just wondering...” Danny bit her lip. “Never mind.”

“It’s okay,” Natasha said without inflection. “We won’t judge.”

“Well,” began Clint. He was interrupted by a swift punch to the shoulder courtesy of Nat.

“How long will it be before a woman becomes president?”

They were all stumped by her question, she could tell. Steve was considering her especially carefully.

“It won’t be long,” he predicted, his expression thoughtful. He didn’t elaborate, but Danny made a note to seek clarification from him later.

“Planning on becoming America’s first female president?” asked Pepper.

“I’d like to,” she admitted, ignoring the shudder that coursed through her dad.

“Please tell me it’s not a stepping stone for world domination,” sighed Tony.

Danny smiled and sipped at her tea.

* * *

Since Steve cooked, he was excused from washing the dishes. Nat and Clint had a mission to complete, and Pepper had some emails to send. Bruce volunteered to clean up, and while Danny would’ve liked to help, she and her dad had things to tend to.

She was finally getting a new suit.

Danny was only half-surprised to see that her training room hadn’t changed — at least physically. She was sure the software had been updated, but otherwise it looked like the same old white and barren room.

A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she stepped into the circle in the middle of the room. But nothing happened.

Her confusion morphed into incredulity when her dad handed her what appeared to be a smartwatch. It was dark purple; the small screen was lined in pink.

“New product?” she guessed, holding her arm out.

Tony slipped the watch onto her wrist with ease. “It’s not on the market,” he informed her. He took a step back. “Press your thumb against the screen for three seconds.”

Danny did as instructed. She had half a second to wonder when Tony had taken her fingerprints before the wall behind her slid open with a _hiss._ She yelped quietly as pieces of armor stuck themselves onto her without any help. The helmet came last, scanning her eyes in less than a second before sitting snugly on her face.

“Whoa,” she breathed, her voice distorted slightly thanks to her visor. “This is awesome.”

Her dad snorted as though amused by her reaction. “You haven’t even seen half of it yet.”

Danny bounced on the tip of her toes. The suit wasn’t as flexible as her previous one – it was more mechanical, like Iron Man’s. It was mostly purple, like the watch, and was accented with pink lines. _Cute!_

“What else is different?” she asked, studying the plates protecting her forearm. “Besides the design.”

“Say ‘J.A.R.V.I.S., wheels’.”

Danny repeated the key phrase. She gasped as she suddenly grew five inches taller. A quick glance at her feet revealed why – her suit came with built-in rollerskates!

“Oh my god!” she squealed, already taking off. She zoomed around the perimeter of the room. The wheels were so smooth, she felt like she was gliding in the air. “This is so cool!”

“It’s motorized,” Tony informed her as he fiddled with a keypad. With a final jab of a button, the room shifted.

Ramps emerged from floor, and Danny didn’t have to be told what to do. Grinning, she raced up the curve of the ramp and pirouetted once mid-air before returning to the ground whereupon she continued to skate laps around the cavernous room.

“Stop,” commanded her dad. He placed a hand against his temple. “You’re making me dizzy.”

Danny zig-zagged towards him, eager to find out more about her new suit. “What else is there?”

Tony tapped his wrist in reply.

Danny glanced at her own and was surprised to see the watch still there in its original form – the only difference was a protective cover shielding it from outside forces. She tried flipping it open to no avail. Taking her cue from last time, she pressed her thumb against the cover. Though her fingerprint was blocked off due to her gloves, the cover slid open anyway; the pressure must’ve been what activated it. She touched the screen.

Her visor came to life. A small icon of her helmet took up a corner of her view. When she tapped the corresponding icon on her watch, nothing happened, so she swiped it instead. This time the icon was of a target.

When she tapped it, the view changed. Schematics appeared, overlaying the room in front of her. There were calculated trajectories atop the ramps to indicate the speed she needed to achieve maximum height, as well as predicted distances between the far side of the room and her current standing point. The suit must’ve noted her average speed as well, because it told her how long she would take to reach the other side of the room.

“Wow.” She turned to her dad and repeated her exclamation. “You’re favoring your right leg?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Dum-E ran over my left foot.”

“Maybe it gained sentience and did it as revenge for the name.”

“Him running over me is why he’s called that in the first place.”

Danny shook her head at her dad’s petulance before continuing to scroll through the watch. There were offense, defense and speed enhancers, a chameleon mode _and_ a stealth mode, as well as an autopilot setting.

“They’re all available via voice activation for convenience,” added Tony.

Danny pressed the button by her chin, sending the visor shooting up into her helmet. “Thank you,” she said with a grin. “This is more than I could’ve imagined.”

Her dad presented her with one of his rare, genuine smiles. “Welcome home, kid.”

* * *

There was so much one could do by themselves in a room full of simulations. After defeating all the non-existent enemies and conquering a myriad of diverse terrains established in the room, Danny was bored – and not to mention lonely. It was a good thing, then, that at least one Avenger seemed to be at the tower at all times.

Clint was the most approachable of them all, even if he was rarely present. He was a great teacher, too, remaining patient and amiable despite Danny’s frustrating struggle with archery.

“The movies make it look so easy,” she whined, “and painless.” Her right forearm was sporting an amazing red welt from where the bowstring slapped against her.

Wincing, she pulled the long (and useless) gloves back on. “You make it seem effortless,” she added with a sigh.

“Years and years of practice,” Clint assured her, grinning. “We picked a particularly bad day for archery, though.”

Danny tucked the same strand of hair behind her ear for the fifth time that morning. The day had started off agreeably enough, and then a breeze had begun to pick up about half an hour ago. It was neither strong nor long-lasting, but reappeared so frequently that it actually managed to interfere with her shooting.

(Not like she was skilled at it anyway.)

“Should we call it a day?” prompted Clint.

 _Thank god._ Danny hoped her relief wasn’t palpable. “Sounds good,” she replied, peeling off her gear. “Are you good at hand-to-hand combat?”

Clint scoffed. “I’m fantastic at it,” he boasted as he collected his bow from her. “But I have to admit it isn’t my specialty when it comes to close-quarter combat.”

“Then what is?”

A knife seemed to materialize in his hand. “This.” Without warning, he twisted the upper half of his body and slammed the knife into the tree behind him. It sunk all the way to its hilt.

Wide-eyed, Danny approached tree and tried to pry the knife from the thick trunk. It wouldn’t budge. “What the hell?” she mumbled.

“Weren’t expecting that, were you?” Clint guessed, smiling smugly. The more time she spent with him, the more he resembled a cat to her. “As an archer, I get underestimated a lot. Once my opponent closes the distance on me, they think they’ve got me. They’d be mistaken.”

Clint, grunting softly, pried his knife from the tree and sheathed it. Instead of pocketing it once more, he handed it to her.

“Word of advice,” he said, watching solemnly as she accepted the gift. “Never show your hand.”

It was almost magical, the effect Clint’s advice had on her. Her new mantra was so deeply etched into her mind that she applied it to almost every facet of her life from then on.

Her desire for discretion seemed to be a familial trait, she was quick to discover. After an interesting Christmas break with the Avengers, Tony took her aside and showed her the website for Midtown School of Science and Technology, a well-known high school in NYC.

Danny glanced at the tablet and then at her dad. “Your alma mater?” she presumed.

“I was too good for school,” Tony said dismissively. “This is where you’ll be attending starting from next week.”

Danny lowered the book she had been reading. _Say what now?_ “Uh, I was under the impression I’d be choosing which school I wanted to get into.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“One overseas,” she admitted.

Tony sighed. “I’m wounded. Why do you keep trying to run off to other lands?”

“Because they’re _interesting._ I don’t even like science!” she complained, grabbing the tablet from his hands. “I’m more into the arts.”

“Good thing their Arts faculty just received a sizable donation from the Stark-Potts Foundation, then. They also have an esteemed debate team. Perfect for you.”

Danny directed a flat look at her dad. “Why this school?” she asked, more than a little suspicious. Out of all the schools in the area, why Midtown? Why not one closer to home? “Were they the only one to accept your bribe?”

“Please,” snorted her dad. “You think I need a bribe to get you in? Remind me who I am again.”

“Big-headed?”

“I said who, not what.”

She cracked a smile at that. Then she remembered the original topic of conversation. “Wait. So you, what, hacked into their system and got me in? Just like that?”

“Ugh, have you been talking to Steve again? Or is ‘hack’ making a comeback?”

“Tech snob,” she groused. She gasped in realization. “Oh my god. Don’t tell me that school is gonna be filled with mini-yous.”

“Impossible. There can only be one of me.”

“True,” agreed Danny, returning her attention to the tablet. “The universe would probably explode otherwise.”

Tony yanked the tablet from her hands. Ignoring her squawk, he switched to a new window before handing it back to her. “These are the subjects I took the liberty to sign you up for. Feel free to brush up on them by next Monday.”

He made a move to ruffle her hair. Danny wasn’t having it, though, pissed as she was at having an entire school dumped in her lap like that. She slapped his hand away with more heat than necessary, but immediately regretted it when she caught the flash of hurt in her dad’s eyes. He recovered in record time, however, and sauntered off like nothing was wrong.

Danny heaved a sigh. She closed her eyes and counted to three before opening them again. Her calm was short-lived; when she laid eyes on the school’s website again, she could feel a twitch developing in her brow.

What the hell was her dad up to?

* * *

Midtown was pretty much what she expected from a school dedicated to science and tech streams of education. While it certainly held a diverse range of students—seeing so many Asians bolstered her confidence—they all seemed to fall in the same economic background: loaded.

Danny eyed the branded handbags with barely concealed disdain as she went through the main entrance. Who brought a LV bag to school? Didn’t backpacks suffice?

“Hey there,” said a voice from her left. It belonged to a tall, lanky dude in what she presumed was Midtown’s varsity jacket. “Are you new here? You look lost.”

He had a nice smile, Danny noticed. His eyes, though — there was something in them that had her on guard. Nevertheless, she knew better than to alienate a random on first day of school, so she pasted on a polite but distant smile and said, “I’m good, thanks.”

Unfortunately, he was persistent in getting into her good graces. “No need to be so polite,” he insisted as he followed her up the stairs into the building. “I can help you find way around this place. It can be pretty confusing, and I’m saying this as a senior.”

_If you’re a senior then why are you trying to hit on a freshman?_

Danny came to a stop. She sharpened her smile the way Frigga had whenever she was dealing with a particularly pesky councilman.

“You’re annoying,” she informed him.

It was almost funny, the way his expression faltered. Danny turned away before he could respond, so it was until he was halfway through his exclamation of “Who the hell do you think you are?” that she realized that he was reaching for her.

Danny’s shoulders tensed beneath his grip. His success at stopping her was short-lived, however; his glower contorted into his astonishment as Danny ripped his hand away from her person and pressed her thumb against the inside of his wrist.

A small part of her relished in the yelp he admitted. The feeling of satisfaction only grew when he retracted his hand hastily from her loose grip. This time he left her alone as she walked away.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t pay for her impulsiveness. Other students had witnessed her lapse in judgement and, based on the comments that followed her to the admin office, they weren’t about to forget it anytime soon.

 _Sorry, Dad,_ she thought with a wince. He probably wouldn’t be too impressed by her slip-up, especially since it was her first day.

On the bright side, no one had ratted her out. Principal Morita greeted her cordially as though she were any other student. He welcomed her to the school, armed her with her timetable and locker instructions, and basically shooed her out of his office before she could miss rollcall.

The classroom was easy to find, thankfully. The school’s layout was simple and logical, so Danny felt reassured in the knowledge that she wouldn’t get lost as she had in her previous one. Since she was early, however, she was struck with the conundrum of deciding whether she should stay outside until the bell rang or head on in anyway. Her middle school had mandated its students to wait for the teacher’s arrival prior to filing in, so it made sense for Midtown to uphold the same policy, right?

Wrong. After the bell went off, people began rounding the corner. Some offered her odd looks as they streamed into the room; Danny flushed and followed after them. It was only upon walking into the room that she discovered her second problem: which seat should she choose?

Ultimately, she ended up standing between the door and the teacher’s desk for fear of pissing anyone off by taking their seat. As such, she received a front-row view of Varsity Jacket’s expression when he walked into the room.

He blanched like he had just seen a ghost. A flash of anger replaced his constipated expression as titters erupted around the classroom, no doubt due to the little fight he had lost not long ago.

“Jackson got his ass beat by the new kid!” hollered someone in the back.

There was proper laughter this time, subdued only slightly by Jackson’s humiliated glare. When he saw it wasn’t working, he turned his bland blue eyes to Danny. “You’ll pay for that,” he grumbled as he sauntered to his chair.

Danny debated tripping him as he passed, but then she noticed someone approaching – an adult this time. A tall, heavyset woman wandered inside, a bright smile on her face as she greeted the class. It grew as she took notice of Danny.

“You must be Danielle Zhang,” she noted cheerily. “Welcome to Midtown School of Science and Technology. I’m Mrs Chaisumdet. Let’s see…” Without waiting for a reply, Mrs Chaisumdet turned to scan the classroom. “Ah, there’s a seat next to Miss Toomes in the middle there.”

Danny traced her gaze to the centre on the classroom. Seated there was probably the prettiest girl Danny had ever seen in her entire life. Her hands clenched into fists as she struggled to keep from gasping aloud. It probably would’ve been drowned out by the furious drumming of her heart anyway.

“Miss Toomes?” called their homeroom teacher as a boy with long hair scrambled into the room. “Please show Miss Zhang around the school during the break.”

Danny offered Mrs Chaisumdet a small smile of thanks before taking the seat beside her newfound crush. She offered a shyer smile to her in greeting.

“I’m Liz,” said Liz with a smile. “Short for Elizabeth.”

“Call me Danny,” she replied, relaxing slightly beneath Liz’s open smile. “Thanks in advance.”

As Mrs Chaisumdet took attendance, Danny struggled to control the giddiness within her. Her gratefulness for the school’s interyear homeroom setup grew exponentially when she realized Liz was one of the most popular people in school and definitely the most well-liked among her sophomore peers. It was no wonder, then, that Mrs Chaisumdet had assigned Liz to her despite the fact that they were in separate grades; being by the side of such an affluent student was sure to give her a leg up in asserting her place in this new school.

Danny resolved to get her homeroom teacher a huge basket of goodies later in the year — something grander than a mere #1 teacher mug and an apple.

* * *

“Is it true you snapped Jackson Morales’s wrist?”

Danny was startled out of her reverie by her seatmate. His brown eyes twinkled with barely concealed glee at the mere prospect of his suggestion.

“I didn’t snap it,” she grumbled. “I just applied a little pressure.”

The brunette deflated visibly. “People are saying they heard a snap, and that Morales swore revenge on you. His dad is acquainted with the Avengers, y’know.”

Danny grinned. “Really?”

His head bopped up and down in an enthusiastic nod. “He showed us a pic of what the inside of Avengers tower looks like. Neat, right? I’m Stephen, by the way, with a ph but hopefully with a phd later.”

Stephen paused as though he were expecting laughter; Danny gave me him a close-lipped smile instead.

He didn’t seem to mind, though, and steamrolled right ahead. “How are you liking Midtown so far?” he asked, and Danny wondered if he genuinely cared or was just seeking a springboard for his next topic of conversation.

“It’s fine,” she replied, glancing at the clock. Class wouldn’t start for another minute. “Everyone’s nice enough.” When they weren’t accusing her of shit, anyway. “I’m Danny, by the way.”

Stephen’s head tilted to the side like a puzzled cockatrice. “Why Danny? Why not Danielle?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

He smiled for the first time since he initiated the conversation. Danny shouldn’t have felt pleased by his approval; she felt like she had just passed some sort of test.

Stephen, she came to learn as class progressed, was kind if chatty. He knew a great deal economics and was happy to help her during the more complex parts of the lesson. Danny had brushed up on all her subjects at home, but there was only so much she could do in half a week’s time.

Stephen was the first person who was genuinely friendly with her. He didn’t seem to have an ulterior motive as, when Liz waved over in the cafeteria during lunch, he happily bid her goodbye before joining his own group of friends in the corner.

Once Danny was seated beside Liz, she was introduced to her friends. There were two of them at the table — a guy and a girl, also sophomores.

“Have you thought about what extracurricular you want to sign up for?” Liz asked her once Danny was done fielding the usual stream of generic questions.

“Liz, you’ve got to stop,” laughed Betty as she bit into her apple. Her real name was also Elizabeth; to eliminate any confusion, she and Liz had decided on separate nicknames in their first year of high school. “You already have enough freshmen roped into the decathlon.”

“You can never have too many members,” protested Liz with a grin. “What if someone falls ill before a meet? We’d be in serious trouble.”

“What does a decathlon do?” Danny asked hesitantly. She picked at the rest of the salad Pepper had packed her this morning.

“Basically you’re quizzed on a bunch of facts from a broad range of topics. It’s done in teams, so it really builds a sense camaraderie, y’know?”

Danny leaned back to reevaluate the conversation. “You’re really passionate about this,” she noted with faint surprise.

Liz nodded. “It’s sort of a dream of mine. Kind of stupid, but...” She shrugged.

A dream, huh?

“I think it’s cool,” Danny admitted, digging through her bag for her bottle. “What extracurricular are you doing, Betty?”

Betty perked up. “I’m part of the school’s news program. I aspire to be an anchor,” she announced primly.

“I can see you as one,” replied Danny, and there was only a slight curl of amusement on her lips.

Betty preened.

Seymour muffled his snort behind his sandwich. He a small dude, slimmer and shorter than Danny, and sassier to boot. He caught her gazing at him, and they shared a smirk at Betty’s expense.

“I’m a theater kid, by the way,” Seymour added when he swallowed a bit of his BLT. “So I don’t have time for the decathlon even if I wanted to join.”

“You can have more than one extracurricular?” she asked, surprised.

“Yeah. I know one freshman who has three.”

“You mean Peter Parker, right?” asked Liz, nibbling on a fry. “He’s part of the decathlon team as well.”

“Right, Parker.” Seymour shook his head slightly. “How does one guy have that much time?”

“And yet even more,” snorted Betty. She gestured to a boy three tables away, who was helping his friend construct what looked like a Lego version of Captain America’s shield.

“Oh, man,” groaned Seymour. “In public? Parker, _no._ How dare you waste your good looks like that?”

Danny’s eyes almost fell out of her head in amazement. “You think he’s good-looking?” Peter looked like the human embodiment of white bread.

“He’s cute — like a puppy,” affirmed Seymour.

Liz hummed thoughtfully. “I can see that,” she admitted.

Now Danny was plain indignant. Betty seemed to be feeling the same way, judging by the complex expression decorating her face. They shared a look of quiet bewilderment.

Someone approached Peter and his friend just as the bell rang. His hair was slicked back with a frightening amount of gel, and he simply radiated overconfidence. As Danny packed away her container, she saw the smug guy knock over the Lego shield. He sauntered away, laughing.

“Oh, wow,” muttered Seymour. “That Flash kid is such a dick.”

Liz eyes hardened. “I’ll call him out this afternoon.” During decathlon activities, Danny surmised.

Frustration overwhelmed her. The douchebag was already gone, having left the cafeteria uninterrupted. She wanted to give Flash—and what kind of name was that?—a taste of his own medicine, but she would have to save that for another day.

“Where’s your next class, Danny?” asked Betty.

“The labs,” she replied noncommittally. Her eyes were still on Peter and his friend, who had overcome their despair rather rapidly and were struggling to collect all the Lego pieces. “I know where it is, though – you guys can go ahead.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.

“See you tomorrow!” called Liz and co. as they hurried out of the cafeteria. The final bell for class was set to ring any time now.

Miraculously, several of the pieces reached the halfway point between Liz’s table and Peter’s. Danny bent down and swept them up before approaching Peter and his friend, who were intermittently murmuring “crap, crap, crap” and “freaking Flash” as they hastily collected their stuff.

“You forgot these,” Danny told them.

“Oh,” Peter said breathlessly. Wow, he was unfit. “Thank you so much.” He spent a few seconds awkwardly dancing around her hand, as though uncertain whether he could touch her or not.

They didn’t have time for this. With a small eye-roll, Danny flipped her closed hand so it was facing downwards and let the blocks drop into the hands of Peter’s friend.

“Thanks!” he says, shoving the Legos into the pocket of his hoodie. “You’re the new girl, right? I’m Ned, by the way. And this is Peter.”

Wow, he was friendly. Danny found her warming up to Ned by the second.

“And we’re gonna be late!” Ned realized a beat later, eyes widening. Without another word, he grabbed Peter and took off.

Danny raised her eyebrows at the comedic duo. Peter, who was turning his head to look at her, caught the reaction and blushed in embarrassment.

She sighed. Less than a day into high school and she was already drained.

“Take me back,” she whispered wistfully with a glance at the ceiling. Heimdall didn’t seem inclined to let her return at the moment, however.

Someone up there must’ve been looking after her, for the rest of her day went by peacefully. The classes were manageable, and everyone was polite if distant with her. It seemed the novelty of her arrival was clearing.

Uncle Rhodey was waiting for her outside the school when the final bell of the day rang. Danny didn’t know if he pulled some strings or was just exceptionally early, but he had managed to score a great spot; she didn’t have far to walk to get to his car.

“Thanks for picking me up,” she told him as she closed the door behind him.

“It’s no problem,” he assured her as he watched her buckle up. “It’s Steve’s turn next week, though, if you don’t mind the bike.”

Danny grimaced. She couldn’t exactly complain. “It’s fine,” she told him, cracking open the window.

“Laters Danny!” Stephen with a ph hollered from the gate. Those around him were glaring at him for his brashness, but he didn’t seem to notice nor care.

Danny waved at him as they drove off.

“You made a friend,” Rhodey noted, pleased but unsurprised. Danny almost cried at his faith in her.

“Several,” she boasted.

“Several,” he echoed, amping up the admiration. “This calls for some cheesecake.”

 _Yes!_ “Cheesecake factory!”

Rhodey chuckled. “I hope Steve has a sweet tooth.”

Danny hoped they all did.


End file.
